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TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 




■■■'>Se''^S^!g;i&3i^iPS»w- ■- 



AMONG EASTERN ISLES. 



TWO ON THEIR 
TRAVELS 



BY 



ETHEL COLQUHOUN 



WITH EIGHT COLOUEED PLATES, SIXTEEN FULL-PAGE 

AND NUMEEOUS TEXT ILLUSTEATIONS BY 

THE AUTHOEESS 



NEW YORK 

A. S. BARNES AND CO. 

1902 



13 



^5«1 



hoh 



'^'\ 



PRINTED IN ENGLAND 



TMs Edition is for Sale in the 
United States of A merica only, 
and is not to be imported into 
countries sis;natory to the 
Berne Treaty. 



i 



( 



TO 
MY FATHER AND MOTHER 



PREFACE 

Unaccustomed as I am to writing books I am very well 
accustomed to read them, and I am aware that there are 
two orders of prefaces — those one reads and those one 
doesn''t. " Good wine needs no bush," nor a good play a 
prologue, but since prefaces are in fashion let me try to 
write one of the first sort. 

Here, then, is my book, which I have written and drawn. 
It is not very well written and not at all well drawn, but 
it has one merit. It gives a picture of strange countries as they 
appeared to a commonplace, unexperienced traveller ; and as 
there are many such people who long to see these countries and 
who are shut in and prevented by circumstances, I hope my 
book may prove a little window to some ; that they may look 
out of their narrow, grey, walled-in world, and see through 
my eyes the glorious sunshine and varied life in these foreign 
lands. Scattered throughout these pages are sketches of 
people I met, and if I am sometimes a little inclined to make 
fun of them I hope the reader won't say : " She is a nasty, 
ill-natured thing," but will remember the answer given by 
a certain lady in one of Maria Edgeworth's novels to a 
priggish young lord. She was amusing him with her sallies 
about their mutual friends, and he couldn't help being- 
amused but tried to look shocked. With Irish wit she said : 



viii PREFACE 

" I laugh at them because I love them — I could not love any 
one I might not laugh at ! "" 

So laugh with me, or at me, or anj^how you will, only laugh, 
dear reader, for that is all I ask, 'Tis a melancholy world 
for most people, when all is said, and I wish for nothing 
more than to add a tiny bit of mirth and enjoyment 
from my own superabundant store to that of less favoured 
folk. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I 

THE START 

Andrew and I — Of making journeys — Of sea-voyages and disillusion — 
Of flirtation — The Suez Canal — A mother's tragedy — Colombo — 
Andrew and the jewel merchant pp. 1-7 

CHAPTER II 

"THE STEAITS" 

Christmas Eve — Singapore — Some Singaporeans, brown, yellow, and 
black — An eye for colour— The absurd Cmgalese— Malay versus 
Chinese— The Singapore Club— Britons in exile — What Andrew 
heard— Hotels— The Tamil barber— A great sahib and a Post 
Office young lady pp. 8-18 

CHAPTER III 

IN A GARDEN 

Of colonial Dutch— Of table manners— Of trading boats and deck 
passengers— What the Chinese talk about— Andrew in search of 
information — We arrive in Java — Concerning children's parties — 
Then and Now — Of paddy-fields — Water, water, everywhere ! — 
Going to market— Of London fogs— A day in the Dutch East 
Indies — The costume of the country as worn by the Dutch — Of 
pyjamas — And heel-less slippers— Bath parade — What Andrew 



X CONTENTS 

saw ! — "Rice table" — Off to the Highlands — A railway journey — 
Our travelling companions — The train that tii-ed — Of sleepless 
nights — A popular delusion — We go up a mountain — The ways 
of dog-carts — Tosari — Andrew is lazy . . . pp. 19-36 



CHAPTER IV 

MORE ABOUT THE GARDEN 

An ancient Javanese town — The palace of the Sultan — We go for a 
drive — Our carriage and four — Boro-Bodor — Buddha "at home " 
— A peep into the fourteenth century — Stories in stone — Caught 
in the rain — A wayside dancer — Memories — The Spanish gitana 
at Granada — Burmese affinities — At Garoet — Of happiness and 
climate — Stamford Raffles pp. 37-48 

CHAPTER V 
THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 

Of borrowing — The SimUoio and her crew — Dolce-far-nientc — Among 
the isles — We ship a pirate — He runs us aground — A voyage of 
discovery — On the Borneo coast — Ah Ting — We lose our way, 
our food, and our tempers — A forlorn hope — Andrew disappears 
— Ah Ting as a Job's comforter — Propriety and the engineer — A 
wet night — A wetter morning — I am hungry — The engineer's 
illness — And recovery — Andrew to the rescue — An heroic figure — 
Andrew and Ah Ting pack up — Consequences — We board the 
Sarei Brunei — Farewell to the SwaUoio . . . pp. 49-61 

CHAPTER VI 

OF THE SAREL BRUNEI AND SEA DOGS 

New quarters — A mixed crew — Of accents — A Scots engineer — Flot- 
sam and jetsam — A popular delusion — A jovial Dutchman — 
" Now Jacob was a hairy man " — A dissertation on fruit— The 
cult of the mango — Carrion on custard — Wanted, a good con- 
science ......... pp. 62-70 



CONTENTS xi 

CHAPTER VII 

OF EIVEES AND TOWNS IN DUTCH BORNEO 

A Malay river— Samarinda— River life— The leisurely Malay— Scenes 
from my diary— Pulo Laut— On the Barito— Banjermassin— 
Hotel life— The ways of the Colonial Dutch— The paliit—A 
quaint army— The footsteps of a tragedy— We spend the night- 
Heat and mosquitoes— Social functions— A' place to live out of— 
Brown babies— Boats and their owners— Back to the Sarei 
Brunei— The skipper's yarns— About Christmas Isle— The ways 
of Dutch officials — Ah Ting retreats ... pp. 71-91 



CHAPTER VIII 

A VOYAGE OF MISERY AND A HAPPY ENDING 

A roundabout way to Manila — We start off with impaired digestions — 
How to cater for passengers — Life on the ocean wave — Of cats — 
A night alarm — Of whisky " as used in the Houses of Parlia- 
ment" — The Scots traveller is sarcastic — He is thirsty — Andrew 
and the Dutchman sit it out — Labuan at last — A deserted Crown 
Colony— Scenery and stories— Kudat— A night attack— Baffled 
by condensed milk — Dutch phlegm and Highland pluck — A lonely 
woman — Sandakan — An invitation from Americans — Concerning 
clothes pp. 92-108 



CHAPTER IX 

OF WOMEN, MEN, AND THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 

We join the Cachuca — Of spinsters — Be good and you will be beautiful 
— Of American women — Of husbands — A meek millionaire — The 
Sulus — A Malay dandy — Siri boxes — The story of Dona Isabella — 
A much engaged army pp. 109-123 



xii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER X 

AMONG THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

Scotland in the East — A Filipino town — The little brown brother- 
Feminine extravagance — We sleep at the Alcalde s — Eating and 
drinking — Of religious feeling — Cebu and Magellan — The romance 
of history — A perilous adventure — We nearly feed the sharks — 
Andrew is serious pp. 124-142 

CHAPTER XI 

SOME PROVINCIAL TOWNS AND MANILA 

Where Rizal lived — A village school — Scenery and sunsets — A wrecked 
town — Manila at last — A leisurely arrival — A land of Mahana — 
In search of a bed — Hotels and hotel-keepers — American philo- 
sophy — De mortuis — On the Lunetta — New wine in old bottles — 
We leave for Japan pp. 143-158 

CHAPTER XII 

A PLAYGROUND AND ITS WORKERS 

DoUs'-house land — ^English as she is spoke — Kioto and its temples-^ 
A feast of colour — Gold with a difference — Country cousins — 
Of children and lovers — Of religion — Madame Chrysantheme — 
Women who work and are happy — A Japanese belle — An unwilling 
bridegroom • PP- 159-173 

CHAPTER XIII 

A PLAYGROUND AND ITS WORKERS (CONTINUED) 

A contrast — Japanese potteries — Painting — China for Chicago — For 
Japan — Silk-weaving — Tea-firing — A tea-party — The Japanese 
Mary Ann — Andrew and I are envious, but not for long 

pp. 174-183 



CONTENTS xiii 

CHAPTER XIV 

THE INLAND SEA AND KOREA 

iHow not to see a country — Of impressions — My private picture 
gallery — Serious shopping — Andrew is foiled — The Inland Sea 
compared to the Philippines — A tea-house and a suspicious 
maiden — A gold screen — Of food on Japanese boats — Of tinned 
milk and menus — The Korean coast — A land of tombstones — 
Coiffure extraordinary — An eccentric costume — A suggestion to 
" the last of the Dandies " — An indelible picture — The uniqueness 
of Korea and its people — A peep into a house — Buying a brass 
bowl — The Japanese in Korea— Sayoiiavd . . pp. 184-193 

CHAPTER XV 

VLADIVOSTOCK AND A RAILWAY JOURNEY 

Tladivostock from the picturesque, commercial, domestic, and social 
points of view — The servant question again — Our train — Of food 
and prices— A noisy departure — Space, scenery and sunset 

pp. 194-202 

CHAPTER XVI 

A DAY AT KHABAROVSK 

Of lost luggage — Our friend the lieutenant — In quest of a bed — What 
we found— A successful interview — A contrite official — We leave 
with eclat pp. 203^-209 

CHAPTER XVII 

ON THE AMUR 

Of river steamboats — Ti-avelling companions — Russian children — 
English as she is spoke — Of Cossack villages — Blagovestchensk — 
Russian piety — Folk songs — Flowers — The Shilka river — Con- 
victs pp. 210-224 



xiv CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XVIII 

ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN 

On the train — Scenery — More flowers — Slothful Siberia- — Lake Baikal 
— A gi"eat Siberian city — Luxury and discomfort — A choice of 
churches — The train de luxe — Beautiful Siberia — The Urals — 
Little Russia — Moscow pp. 225-232 

CHAPTER XIX 

THE FINISH 

A bath at Moscow — Of droschky drivers and piety — Our view of the 
Kremlin — The way to see sights — Of languages — The ignorance 
of foreigners — Heimweh — Farewell to the East — Over the Ger- 
man border — G-erman officials — A long day — Domestic scenes — 
Flushing — Boiled eggs and other delights of home — London 
again — Louisa on our travels — Of relations and friends — Vale ! 

pp. 233-242 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 



COLOURED PLATES 

Among Eastern Isles 

Planting Paddy in Java 

A Mountain Road, Java 

In a Labuan Garden 

A Filipino Home 

Approach to a Temple, Japan 

" Sayonara '' . 

A Halt at a Wayside Station on the Trans-Siberian 



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Frontlapiece 

To face page 24 

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„ ., 168 

ti }} loo 

„ 230 



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BLACK AND WHITE PLATES 



Malay Types . , . . , 

Chinese Types at Singapore 

The Toilet of Andrew 

Mountain Road and Paddy Fields 

Inside the Walled City, Djokja 

A Wayside Dancer and Native Band 

A Filipino Sailing Prahu . 

A Filipino Village Street . 



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xvi FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Wet Walk .... 

A Cornel' in Old Manila . 

An Improvised Filipino Band . 

Nagasaki Harbour . 

On the Amur — A Cossack Village 

On the Shilka River 

The Village of Listvenitchnya^ Lake Baikal 

A Bit of Moscow 





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CHAPTER I 

THE START 

Andrew and I — Of making joui'neys — Of sea-voyages and 
disillusion — Of flirtation — The Suez Canal — A mother's 
tragedy — Colombo — Andrew and the jewel merchant 




SHOULD have begun this book a good deal sooner 
had it not been for the difficulty I have had in 
inventing a name for my husband. Of course 
it would have been a great deal better and 
more exciting both for the reader and myself 
if there had been no husband in the case. 
But there is no use trying to conceal the 
shameful fact ; I am a much-married woman, and therefore I 
can't write about my travels without dragging Him in at every 
other sentence. Now, it would be altogether against all 
precedent if I spoke of him by his real name. Lady writers, if 
they are forced, as I am, to own to a husband, always adopt 
some sort of circumlocution. They either call him A. or X., in 
which case one is eternally aggravated by speculating whether 
his name is Arthur or Abel, Xenophon or Xylonite, or else 
they allude to him vaguely (and somewhat ungrammatically) 
as "Himself" or "The Sage." The third course is that 
adopted by a very remarkable lady indeed, and is so simple 
and straightforward that I have decided to copy it. As my 



2 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



husband's men friends call him " The Rooster " (I can't think 
why, except that he never roosts) ; as his own brothers and 
sisters call him Jim, and as I myself usually address him as 
'• Sweetums " and " Diddums," I have decided to write of him 
as "Andrew,"" which happens to be one of the names 
bestowed on him by his godfather and godmother. 

The very day Ave got engaged — which is such a long time 
ago that I've already finished my wedding-cake — Andrew 
said to ine, turning back after the tenth or eleventh good- 
bye : " Would you like to 
take a run out to the East 
after we are married ? " 

Andrew is the sort of 
man who always talks of 
" taking a run " to any 
place. He says one morn- 
ing at breakfast : " Shall 
we take a run over to Cen- 
tral America ? " and if in a fit of absent-mindedness I say 
" Certainly ! " he is just as likely as not to call and take 
steamer tickets that very afternoon. When he spoke of 
" the East," I had a delightfully vague idea of what he 
meant, but, of course, I gave the stereotyped reply without 
which no newly engaged conversation would be complete : 
" Anywhere with you, darling ! " An incredibly short space 
of time afterwards I found myself on a cold November day 
driving down to the docks in a cab, uncomfoi'tably full of 
new-looking luggage — the cab, of course. I wonder if every 
one has the same feeling that always comes over me when on 
the brink of a journey. If by any conceivable means I could 
cancel all previous engagements, and sit down in a comfortable 
chair with the knowledge that I needn't stir out of it to 
catch trains or steamers or any mortal thing, then I should 




THE START 



3 



still be vegetating in a small country town, and should 
continue to vegetate, for Andrew and the Wide, Wide 
World would be equally outside my ken. 

Andrew cannot understand this frame of mind. On this 
occasion he said reproachfully : " I thought you were so keen 
on going ; " but I did not argue the subject — what is the use 
with a man ? Men, poor things, are so terribly elemental, 
they can only feel one thing at once, and if they want 
anything they really want it, and don't have to wonder for 
days whether the desire is gen- 
uine. Andrew, although elemen- 
tal, is an excellent travelling 
companion, and I would recom- 
mend him to any lady were it 
not that 1 hope to keep him 
permanently myself. When ^\e 
at last left the river behind and 
steamed out into the horrid, 
grey, tumbling channel he did 




not allow me to remain groaning 






in my cabin, even though I * -' 

implored him to do so. He dragged me on deck, tucked me 
up in rugs, and fed me with dry biscuits and apples. There 
is nothing so soul-sufficing as apples when one is " not quite 
the thing " at sea. 

All my life I had pictured the delightful laziness, the 
dolce far 7iiente, of a long sea voyage. I had seen myself in 
dainty blue serge, with sailor blouses and a trim little hat, 
tripping round the decks, lying gracefully in steamer-chairs 
with red cushions, and flirting with the officers. All girls 
who read this book may take it from me that this is a fraud 
and a delusion. I never yet saw a woman who looked really 
decent on a long sea voyage. In the first place, one's hair is 



4 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

always out of curl. Of course, I know " where nature fails 
art steps in," but even art cannot withstand a stiff bree/e 
and a damping- spray, and I have distinct recollections of a 
lady who trusted to art, and whose front coiffure was always 
perched on her nose or one of her ears. When the weather 
gets hot and punkahs are started it is even worse : nature 
simply settles in long wisps over the forehead, but art has 
a way of rising and falling en masse. The small minority of 
women whose hair curls naturally — and who are always 
unreasonably stuck-up about it, since it implies no peculiar 
merit — certainly score on a sea voyage ; but I have remarked 
that, unless they practically keep in their cabins or the 
saloons all day, their faces get red and rough with the wind 
and their noses peel in the sun. Thank heaven, my nose 
never peels ! 

As for flirting with the officers, it is the poorest game I 
know. The essence of flirting is that it should have an 
element of clanger about it, and that both sides should 
pretend to think they are serious. Now, on board ship this 
is simply an impossibilitv to any one with an imagination. 
The whole thing has a sort of " 500th performance " air 
about it, and is as tame and innocuous as milk and water. 
The P. and O. have now, I believe, forbidden their officers to 
flirt at all. Tant mieu.v, it must be a great relief to the girls, 
who need no longer pretend to enjoy such a doubtful pastime. 
Reclining in a steamer chair is the one real thing about a 
sea voyage, but it is difficult to be graceful over it. In this 
attitude I consumed an extraordinary number of novels. At 
first I read them slowly, spinning out a volume to cover a 
couple of days, but after a time my craving for excitement 
would not permit this leisurely method, and I gutted two or 
three every day as long as they lasted, and when they were 
finished, took to staring out to sea and dreaming a terrible 



THE START 5 

dream that always haimts me in mid-ocean. I dream that 
in some way I faJ] overboard at night, that no one sees me, 
that I try to cry and cannot. The water is cold and I strike 
out desperately ; the ship with its flaming lights is slipping 
away in front of me ; the wash strikes me full in the face ; I 
gasp and splutter and try again to scream, but my voice 
sounds thin and weak, and a great silence settles down over 
the dark, heaving waters. 

As I have a great deal to tell about our travels in some 
out-of-the-way parts I will not linger over this well-known 
voyage, for, indeed, no one wants to be bored with hearing 
about monotonous days and tranquil nights. 

Port Said and the Suez Canal are hot, sandy, ugly and not 
interesting, but a j^ropos of the latter I must tell a tragic 
little story. Travelling with us were a prosperous Scotsman 
and his wife. She was a motherly-looking woman, and took 
a great interest in some children who were on board. One 
day she told several of us that she had only been able to rear 
one of hei- own, a beautiful boy, and that she had brought 
him with her from the East a year ago, when he was three 
years old. It was the hot season, and in the Suez Canal the 
heat was awful. Every one was prostrated ; stewards lay 
about on the hatches, men and women passed sleepless nights 
on deck. Her baby sickened ; for a day and a night she 
and her husband fanned it continually, and then it died and 
was buried at once in the oily waters of the Canal. She felt 
terribly passing the spot, but throughout 1 wondered that she 
could talk so freely of the incident to strangers. She showed 
us a photograph, rather blurred and indistinct, and told us of 
the little boy's size and strength. " He never had a day's 
illness," she said, and related anecdotes of his intelligence. 
Many months afterwards, cruising in Eastern waters on a 
small trading-ship, we met a man who knew the Scotsman 



6 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



and his family. The loss of the only child was mentioned. 
" Such a fine little fellow, too,'" I remarked. The man looked 
at me oddly. "'Twas a merciful deliverance,"" he said. 
" ^Vhy, i;he poor little thing was all wrong ; he was like a 
baby of a few months, never could learn to speak, and had 
always to be carried in some one's arms. It was a great 
trouble to them, for the doctor said he could never be reared." 
In a flash I saw it all — the poor childless mother, deprived of 




her ewe lamb, but finding a certain pleasure in boasting of 
his strength and beauty to happier parents who could not 
know the truth. 

The first real taste of the East was at Ceylon, and among 
all my impressions few remain so vivid as that day of 
sunshine, palms, strange dark faces and swathed forms, hot 
curries and novel fruits, blue water and gorgeous flowers. I 
must be a born traveller in Far Eastern climes, for I took to 
curry like a bird, as the saying is, though I should like to see 



THE START 7 

a bird capable of putting away as much as I did. The 
speciaUty of Ceylon is prawn curry — but there ! if I begin to 
discourse of curries I shall never get to the Far East. The 
topic is practically inexhaustible. It lasted my next-door 
neighbour at meals all through the voyage. He was the sort 
of person Avho travels with little condiments of his own in 
little bottles, and a special kind of biscuit. He would hold 
forth by the hour on his favourite topic. " Then you have 
your Madras curry ! " I used to hear him murmur. " All the 
samhals carefully dried in the sun — my own cook pounds them 
up — must use a silver pestle — a perfectly luscious little fish 
only caught at one place on the coast — walks three miles to 
get 'em fresh for tiffin/' &c. &c. 

At Ceylon I first made the acquaintance of the Oriental 
trader, and I was tempted by many things. Andrew, how- 
ever, was a tower of strength. " If you want .s'ilver things,'"" 
he said, " don't buy this trash. Wait till you get to 
Singapore." The same wise counsels carried me away from 
lace and embroideries, though I couldn't quite escape the 
fascinations of ivory. Don't buy precious stones at Colombo. 
Andrew was once "pulling the leg" of a jewel merchant who 
offered him a lustrous ruby. " Eighty rupee — verree cheap ! " 
" Give you one rupee," laughed Andrew, holding up the coin. 
" No, no ! verree lovelee stone — verree cheap ! " " Here's 
three rupees," said Andrew, extending his hand, and never 
thinking that it would be taken. The man looked round and 
saw that the ship was about to leave and decks were being 
cleared. " All right — I take ! " he yelled, snatched the rupees 
and fled over the side, leaving Andrew with a bit of red glass ! 
It was only three rupees (about four shillings), but Andrew is 
a Scot. He would rather have lost hundreds in a legitimate 
business transaction. 



CHAPTER II 

"THE STRAITS" 

Christmas Eve — Singapore — Some Singaporeans, brown, 
yellow and black — An eye for colom- — The absurd Cingalese 
— Malay verms Chinese — The Singapore Club — Britons in 
exile — What AndrsAv heard — Hotels — The Tamil barber — 
A gi-eat sahih and a Post Office young lady 

N Christmas Eve we arrived off'Singapore and 
anchored outside for the night. I think I 
forgot to say that ^ve were on a Japanese 
ship, and very clean and comfortable she was, 
with an excellent table and good service. I 
was afterwards glad to have got accustomed 
to Oriental servants before landing in the Far East, otherwise 
it might have seemed funny to be " housemaided " bv 
" boys," My cabin steward was a treasure and the best maid 
I ever had. My skirts, as well as Andrew's coats and 
trousers, were brushed and folded, and my blouses tidily 
tucked away. Once some clean clothes came from the wash 
— for there was a washerman on board — and he disposed of 
them so neatly in the drawers that I couldn't find them for 
hours. Naturally, there were many Japanese on board, 
mostly natty little gentlemen in European clothes. On 
Christmas Eve we baught them to play games, had a snap- 




"THE STRAITS ' 9 

dragon made, which pleased them hugely, and ended by 
singing " Auld Lang Syne " in a circle Avith crossed hands, 
and when the third verse came we rushed round and round in 
proper Highland fashion. The Scottish merchant had gone to 
bed, but was pulled out to join in this mirth, and I have a 
delirious recollection of him in grey pyjamas and bare feet, with 
a little Japanese in a Tvimono on one side and a stout lady in 
evening dress on the other, prancing round and trying to keep 
his bare toes out of the way of other people's boots. 

The next day we all landed, and Andrew and I felt rather 
forlorn at having no one to meet us or wish us " Merry 
Christmas.'' I was, however, consoled by the novelty of my 
first ride in a "rickshaw." This was before I had learnt 
that it is not comrne il Jcmt for a lady to be seen in a 
" rickshaw "" in Singapore, but indeed there are so many 
things which are incorrect in that most particular place that 
it takes a long while to learn them all. ¥oy instance, white 
duck coats buttoning up to the chin, such as are worn in 
most parts of the East, are not comme il faut for gentlemen, 
and there is some unspoken law about waistcoat buttons and 
another about trousers which I am not competent to explain. 
Once the novelty has departed, however, "rickshaws " are as 
little attractive as they are correct, for I could never get 
accustomed to a bare brown back bobbino- about in front of 
me, and frequently streaming with perspiration ! 

Singapore is an island. It is flat with the exception of one 
hill, and that is very steep. Owing to circumstances the only 
place where people can be conveniently isolated is the top 
of this young mountain, and therefore honeymooning couples 
frequent it, and spend a week in a sort of dak bungalow or 
rest-house on the top. As there is nothing particular to do, 
and one must take one's provisions and servants, the young 
couple are usually delighted to return to Singapore, and cease 



10 TWO OX THEIR TRAVELS 

to abuse it for a day or two. Singapore is not singular in the 
fact that, although it is freely maligned by all its inhabitants 
among themselves, they do not permit criticism on the part 
of visitors. Thev won't even admit the vileness of the 
climate, though pale cheeks and lack-lustre eyes attest it. As 
a matter of fact Rudyard Kipling said the last M^ord about it 
when he called it a hot-house. There is a constant, damp, 
muggy heat. The cooling shower, which I had been told 
fell every day and cleared the atmosphere, turned out to be a 
sort of thunderous explosion which left the air as hot as ever 
and charged Avith moisture. In such a climate trees and 
vegetation thrive, and the island is a verdant mass of greenery 
through which wind the white roads. The town proper lies 
on the shore, and contains a fine maidan (open space) and 
many handsome buildings. Almost every one lives in what 
are called the suburbs, pretty shady quarters, where bungalows 
nestle in little gardens on either side of a grass-edged road. 
The town is continued towards the suburbs by straggling 
native streets, and there is a whole quarter in Singapore itself 
given up to the Chinese. The first thing that strikes one about 
the East, or the Orient as Americans call it, is that nearly 
every one of the native inhabitants keeps a shop. The shops 
are just boxes without lids lying on one side, and are 
decorated elaborately with red and gold letters. Sometimes 
there is a counter, sometimes the goods are merely stacked 
on shelves round the box, but there is always a Chinaman in 
a scanty blue dress with a long pipe in his mouth somewhere 
about the premises, and some very nude babies playing in 
the gutter just outside. If the babies are not nude they are 
fantastically dressed like little men in all the colours of the 
rainbow ; their faces are thickly powdered and perhaps 
sprinkled with gold-dust. The native streets of Singapore 
are full of fascination, for the queerest medley of Oriental 



"THE STRAITS" 11 

races may be seen there. Klings, as all the Hindoos are 
called here, stride along swathed in diaphanous white 
garments, looking more like chocolate skeletons than men, 
and wearing their hair long, and fierce moustaches, while their 
dark eyes gleam and flash under folded turbans. Their slender 
women sway along beside them, little olive faces and wondering 
sombre eyes peeping out from their yellow draperies. There 
is a peculiar sap green beloved of these Hindoos which rises 
before my eyes as I write. A touch of it in the veil, while 
the body is shrouded in reddish ochre — it sounds barbarous, 
but how marvellously Orientals understand 
colour ! Against a background of golden fruit, 
oranges and bananas, the slender figure so 
swathed makes a dark vivid spot in the 
sunlight, and as we watch the brown, yellow 
and green melt into each other, we fee 
wonder-stricken that we should ever have 
washiness of " French grey" or " eau-de-Nil." 

There are, of course, a variety of costumes even among the 
Klings. Students outrage both taste and propriety by wearing- 
white shirts outside their trousers, and black coats or 
waistcoats with round black caps, while coolies are lightly 
attired in turbans and loin bands. The Cingalese are unmis- 
takable, and surely theirs is the most absurd of costumes, 
although undoubtedly comfortable. 

Please imagine that you are walking behind a stout square- 
built figure, attired in a plain round coat of light tweed, and 
a very skimpy skirt of the same reaching to the ankles, and 
betraying a most sensible pair of shoes. The head is sur- 
mounted by a broad wideawake hat, and a heavy coil of 
black hair is done into a bun behind. You — or at least 1 — 
immediately conclude that this is a strong-minded old maiden 
lady, but a sudden turn of the figure in front reveals a deep, ' 




12 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

dark, earnest face ornamented with a long black beard. This 
is the effect produced by a semi-Europeanised Cingalese. 
The less educated would probably wear cotton or silk jackets 
and saro7ig;<i, and instead of the hat an absurd circular comb 
perched on the crown of the head, like a tiara, only wrong- 
side before. 

Lying at the extreme tip of the Malay peninsula one 
naturally expects Singapore to have a more or less Malay 
flavour. Before I went to the East I had no more idea of 
the difference between Malays and Chinese than the average 
board-school child, so perhaps for the sake of people as igno- 
rant as myself I may as well explain the 
distinctive characteristics as well as I can. 
Authorities differ as to where the Malay 
really comes from, but in his purest form he 
is found only in parts of Sumatra, and I 
believe that in the extreme south of that 
island the old Malay language is spoken. 
The natives of the peninsula are a good deal mixed with the 
Siamese, Burmese and Annamese, as is only natural, and all 
over the Malay islands there are traces of similar infusions of 
foreign blood — Hindoo, Arab and Chinese especially. The 
average Malay is small and finely formed, with a square and 
rather rugged countenance unless he is very young, eyes a 
little oblique and of the darkest brown, nose short and 
somewhat flattened at the tip, mouth prominent and lips 
often thick but not " blubber " like the negro's. Both men 
and women are often comely when extremely young ; they 
are of a pleasing copper-brown colour and have dark straight 
hair, which the women coil loosely behind. Both sexes wear 
practically the same dress, a tight cotton or silk jacket 
buttoning down the front and a sarong', the latter being a 
primitive form of skirt. Made of silk or cotton in a checked 




"THE STKAITS" 13 

or figured design, it is merely a long, wide strip sewn up at 
the ends. The wearer steps into it and drawing the fulness 
to the front makes a cunning pleat and tucks it in. Malay 
women en deshabille, or when taking one of their frequent 
baths in the nearest stream, discard the jacket and pull the 
sarong up under their arm-pits. It is not a graceful 
costume even on the slight-figured Malays ; the tight white 
coat and the bunched fulness of the skirt in front are both 
hideous, and many men and boys choose to surmount this 
costume by a little round cap, perched on their dark shaggy 
hair. I am quite sure these caps are imported in large quan- 
tities from Germany. Some of them are adorned with Berlin 
work, others with beads, and I was painfully reminded of the 
gifts which pensive maidens used to shower on pale young- 
curates before the dawn of muscular Christianity, since which 
time devotion to the Church takes, I presume, the form of 
knitted waistcoats and golfing stockings. 

The Malay, I take it, is distantly related to the Chinese, 
in that he possesses a strain of Mongol blood, but he would 
be the last person to acknowledge the relationship. The 
Malay is a gentleman, the Chinese a trader ; the Malay is a 
fighter, the Chinese won't even strike back when he is struck — 
unless he feels certain of being paid for doing so ; the Malav 
has a glorious contempt for work, the Chinese loves it ; the 
Malay is a sportsman, the Chinese knows no sport save 
gambling. There are no end to the contradictions. Of 
course the clever, industrious, saving Chinese gets the better 
of the proud, lazy, spendthrift Malay, and wherever we jour- 
neyed in the East we saw the same thing — the Malays con- 
tent in their poverty, ignorance and servitude, the Chinese 
thrusting, pushing, struggling, getting rich and becoming 
powerful. 

Singapore is, therefore, far more Chinese than Malay. 



14 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Small Malay fishing villages exist on the coast, but the 
Chinese swarm over the whole island, and are elbowing even 
the Europeans out of the best residential parts. On the 
fashionable drive along the sea-front in the afternoon the 
smartest carriages belong to Chinese merchants, and I have 
special recollections of a particularly c/m'c turn-out, a phaeton 
and spirited pair, driven by a young fellow in the most 
correct suit of light tweed, with buckskin gloves, fashionable 
soft grey hat— and a long black pigtail hanging down behind ! 
John on a bicycle is another Singapore sight, especially when 
he adheres to his own loose jacket and trousers but crowns 
his head with a billycock. His tail is neatly tucked into a 
small pocket to prevent it catching in the wheels. 

The English colony at Singapore is, of course, largely made 
up of males, and the proportion of unmarried girls is even 
smaller. " How lovely ! " exclaims Miss Wallflower, and 
pictures to herself the good time she could have in such a 
favoured spot. Of course, as far as dancing is concerned, it 
must really be a blessing, for there is no dancing girl or 
woman living who does not hate to " sit out." But I am not 
sure that I should care for attentions bestowed on mejante 
de mieiuv and, as far as general society is concerned, it seems 
a very deplorable state of aff^airs. After all, one can't talk 
comfortably to more than one man at once, and when one's 
attentions have to be impartially distributed among twenty- 
five the whole affair becomes a bore. As in all small 
communities, the great drawback is that all the women know 
each other so extremely well, and all the men know each 
other (and the women too) even better, so that social 
intercourse is apt to fall into the familiarity which breeds 
contempt. The Singapore club is a great institution. Andrew 
never started out anywhere without ending up at that club, 
having always, as he assured me, been literally dragged there 



^i-; 





MALAY TYPES. 



"THE STRAITS " 15 

by some casually-met acquaintance : and the stories he picked 
up were wonderful ; being a new man every one was glad, of 
course, to secure him as an audience. Singaporeans are not, 
perhaps, so charitable to each other as they are to their 
climate, but for hospibality and kindness to the stranger 
within their gates they are bad to beat. They put us up, 
dined us and drove us about ; they paragraphed us in the 
local papers, and generally did everything they could to 
prevent us from feeling home-sick. Poor dears ! They live 
in the baleful atmosphere of a hothouse. They are exiles 
and prisoners on a cramped little island, from Avhich they 
cannot even escape for a short holiday at times, only to go 
"home."'"' They naturally get to regard Singapore as the 
hub of the universe, and to feel as if the whole creation 
centred round their tiny world of small civil, military, and 
mercantile duties. They can't exercise charity to their 
poorer neighbours — for neither Chinese nor Malays are 
exactly subjects for my Lady Bountiful — so that it is not 
perhaps wonderful that that much-abused virtue gets rusty 
in their intercourse with social equals. By the way, who are 
social equals in a place like Singapore ? If that point were 
settled by an Act of Parliament, which would provide the 
exact order of precedence from the Governor and his lady 
down to a mercantile skipper and his good woman, much 
heart-burning would be avoided. 

The servant question is not so pressing in the Far East 
because there are always plenty of "boys," as Chinese domestics 
are called in pidgin-English, the equivalent for a male child 
in the same lingo being " smalloboy." John the cook-boy does 
all the marketing, and arranges all the meals after a short 
morning colloquy with his mistress. John the house-boy 
looks alter master's clothes, and keeps them in such perfect 
order that master himself never gives them a thought; at 



16 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

any moment John can always produce exactly the garment 
needed. John the parlourmaid (or head boy) will arrange 
the flowers, look after guests, concoct cooling drinks, and do 
anything and everything. Every household employs besides 
a toiicanai/a, often a Malay, who does the dirty work of the 
house, and is a sort of social pariah. There are, of course, 
more Malays for the stables and Chinese for the gardens, but 
these are the usual house-servants. Children have Chinese 
amahs, and the same sleek-headed creatures, with big rings 
of jade in their ears, loose blue coats and wide trousers, act as 
ladies' maids. That the servant question does exist, however, 
in Singapore is shown by the following monologue and chorus 
overheard at a tea-party : 

" Mij dear' ! she can 7iever keep a servant. I know for a 
fact that shs had three house-boys last month ; and vou 
remember the day she had her tennis ? — rcell, there loasnt a 
ser'vant in the house!'''' — Chorus of ladies: " Oh-h-h ! " — 
" They all gave notice because she absolutely refused to pay 
the weekly bills, and accused her cook before the others of 
cheating. Of course he wouldn't stand that ; told my head 
boy that he would 'lose face." So they all left in a body. 
And she had forty people coming that afternoon ; and she 
cut all the sandwiches herself ; the toueanaya helped her ! '''' 
— Chorus : " Good heavens ! And I actually cde some of 
those sandwiches — the toueanaya I How horrible ! " &c. «^c. 
ad lib. 

On our first arrival at Singapore we had betaken ourselves 
to a hotel, and I was at once delighted and surprised at the 
(to me) novel arrangement of our rooms. The first opened 
off' a central court full of palms and flowers, and contained 
chairs and tables ; the second was divided from the first by 
large folding-doors, and Avas the bedroom proper, while a 
sort of verandah-room in front was provided with cane chairs. 



./ 






CHINESE TYPES AT SINGAPORE. 



"THE STRAITS" 17 

This I afterwards found to be the usual arrangement in hotels 
all over the East, and is pleasant but not very private. To 
begin with, the door opening on to the inner verandah is 
merely a wicket, and as I completed my toilet on the first 
morning of our arrival, I became aware of a pair of dark eyes 
regarding me j ust over the top of the door. I gave a squeal 
and vanished. Of course I ought to have dressed in the 
inner room, but Andrew, as usual, monopolised the looking- 
glass. I won't say that he spends a long time over tying his 
tie and brushing the place where his hair used to grow, but 
he always chooses the exact moment for these performances 
that I am in the midst of curling my back strands or fixing a 
loose and ingenuous-looking coil with some twenty hairpins. 
At this critical moment I become aware that Andrew is 
dodging about behind me with an agonised expression, his 
chin up, and the end of a tie in either hand. This is what 
had happened on that particular morning, and therefore I 
fled to the outer room, and was there surprised as I have 
related. Andrew, on hearing my squeal, at once strode to 
the rescue, and I could hear him objurgating sternly in an 
unknown tongue. It was a Tamil barber anxious to operate 
upon my lord. He was bidden in the most ferocious tone to 
come the following morning. After that we had a levee : 
Cingalese pedlai's came with their laces and sham jewellery, 
and literally camped before the door ; Chinese tailors with 
large books of patterns ; fruit-sellers — all the old crowd we 
had escaped from at every place the ship stopped at. Andrew 
was bitingly sarcastic about their wares : " Buy anything you 
like, but you'll be sorry when you get to Java that you wasted 
your money here ! " 

When the Tamil barber came next morning we had just 
finished our tea on the verandah, so he was bidden to perform 
there, and I had an opportunity for getting a snap-shot of 



i 



18 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Andrew under circumstances the reverse of dignified. When 
I saw the gleaming blade so near the jugular vein of my only 
husband, I thought of the objurgations hurled at that Tamil 
the day before and felt widowed. Nothing, however, happened, 
which is usually the case when one is on the look-out for great 
events. As a matter of fact the Tamils knew Andrew when 
they saw him, and he knew them. He began to expand as 
soon as he got out to the East, and, from being the mildest- 
mannered man that ever quailed before a post-office young- 
lady, became the imperious autocrat all over, and the Orientals 
liked and served him the better for it. 

(Andrew has looked over my shoulder and is very much 
annoyed. He is engaged in telling me long stories of his 
prowess in the matter of post-office young ladies. I am to 
believe that only last week he actually had the temerity to 
address one in the following terms : " When you have quite 
finished your conversation." P.-O. Young Lady, to her 

fellow-clerk: "^ with sheeny ribbon. And she told me 

that he said " Andrew (louder): "When you have quite 

finished." P.-O. Young Lady : " a lady what is a real 

lady." Andrew (in a roar): "Will you give me a halfpenny 
stamp ? " Andrew assures me that, struck by his tone, the 
young lady at once blushed, flew to the drawer, and handed 
him the stamp with a murmured apology. Ahem !) 









./ 



CHAPTER III 



IN A GARDEN 



Of colonial Dutch— Of table manners— Of trading boats and 
deck passengers— What the Chinese talk about— Andrew in 
search of information — We arrive in Java — Concerning 
children's parties— Then and Now— Of paddy-fields— Water, 
water, everywhere !— Going to market — Of London fogs — A 
day in the Dutch East Indies— The costume of the country 
as worn by the Dutch— Of pyjamas— And heel-less slippers 
—Bath parade— What Andrew saw !— "Rice table" — Off to 
the Highlands — A railway journey — Our travelling com- 
panions—The train that tired — Of sleepless nights — A 
popular delusion — We go up a mountain — The ways of 
dog-carts — Tosari — Andrew is lazy 

FTER we left Singapore we wan- 
dered through the Dutch East 
Indies. That sounds a good deal 
nicer and more romantic than say- 
ing that we took a train from 
Batavia to Sourabaya, and 
then went cruising about 
Celebes, the Spice Islands 
and Borneo in a yacht, but 
whichever way one puts it, we 
did the Dutch East Indies. 
Since we got home we have found it convenient to catalogue 




•20 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

our jouvney, and when people ask us where we have been 
we give them one item at once. When we say " The Dutch 
East Indies," they ahvays ask : " And did you iind them very 
disagreeable ? " (referring, it is to be presumed, to the Dutch). 
Well, of course we didn't talk to them about the Boer War, 
and they are far too polite to mention it in our hearing, but 
we can conscientiously say that far from being treated with 
any discourtesy we received much kindness and attention, and 
that from mere hotel acquaintances. They would go out of 
their way to give us information or translate for us, and 
from what we saw of hotel life I am inclined to think that a 
politer people do not exist than the well-educated Dutch. 
The usual colonial official must be a man of good education. 
He speaks English, French and German perfectly, Javanese 
sufficiently to talk fluently to the natives, and often has a 
smattering of Spanish and Italian. His manners at table, 
which I have seen severely criticised, are far more refined 
than those of the Germans, Russians or even Frenchmen of 
the middle classes, while they bear no comparison with those 
of the Spanish. 

What a curious thing it is that Britons should have such 
a different standard of table manners to any other race. 
Germans o-obble ; Frenchmen tuck their serviettes into their 
necks and stooping down shovel in the food ; Spaniards 
expectorate during the meal and smoke cigarettes incessantly 
between courses ; Russians also smoke cigarettes at meals, 
and are not particular about using their fingers, while there 
is apparentlv a superstition which prevents them from passing 
anything. All these think it correct to take salt and pepper 
on the end of one's knife. Even Americans cut their food up 
first, and then laying the knife on one side shovel up their 
viands with the fork. They also break their eggs into glasses 
and eat them with spoons — a most messy performance. All 



IN A GARDEN 21 

these are the common and everyday habits observed in hotels, 
and I am not prepared to deny that Germans, Russians' 
Frenchmen, Spaniards and Americans may be extremelv 
dainty in their home table manners, but I \vish to observe 
that an ordinary commercial hotel in Great Britain will not 
be the scene of any such solecisms. Of all Continental 
people the Dutch are nearest to our standard in this respect, 
and the dainty cleanliness of their clothes and appointments 
is most pleasing. 

Our journey to Java took about three days, and was per- 
formed in beautiful weather. We were on a Chinese-owned 
boat, as it was not convenient to wait for the mail steamer. 
We had the captain's cabin, a very spacious one, but rendered 
uncomfortable by the deck passengers. 

The first time I became acquainted with deck passengers 
was after leaving Ceylon, when the fore part of the ship was 
given up to what seemed to me a vast number of Hindoos 
with their wives, families and household gods. An awnino- 
was put up to protect them, and they camped out most 
contentedly and caused no inconvenience whatever. Later 
on, however, it was our fate to travel in boats carrying 
hundreds of Chinese coolies, and on this occasion, the 
decks being small and much cumbered with freight, the 
coolies were three deep all round the ship. wlien we 
opened our cabin door we had to crawl over their sleepino- 
bodies, and at least fifty camped just under our windows and 
kept up conversation in their terrible Southern Chinese all 
night. Southern Chinese sounds to me just like " Hok— 
hok— quack— kakimuk—hok—hok," repeated in varying 
harsh unmusical tones. I believe if one could understand 
what they were saying one would not be much edified. I was 
once told a story of a man who, noticing a group of Chinese 
labourers who every morning sat and talked three or four hours 



22 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



at a stretch, sent a man to report on their conversation. He 
came back after some time and said that the one topic was the 
immediate prospect of rain. The average dancino; \oung man's 
conversation rises into actual brilHancy beside this. On the 
ship I suspect that the coohes talked of money, and the gainings 
and losings at the game which occupied the whole of their 
day, except for the mid-day meal and siesta. 

The only part of the ship free from the coolie pest was a 
small upper deck not much bigger than a dining-table. Here 

the captain or mate pro- 
menaded solemnly back- 
wards and forwards, and 
I sat in a long chair all 
day consuming antique 
novels, while Andrew 
tried to get information 
out of some one. Getting 
information is Andrew's 
fis ii- um s~yf". — favourite occupation, and 

he has a real genius for it. Left alone with a Hottentot or 
tom-cat, I firmly believe he would extract some kind of 
information from them. 

We fortunately escaped quarantine, with which we had 
been threatened, and landed at Batavia. We had no trouble 
with the Customs officials either on this occasion or any 
other, and the formalities of which we had heard so many 
complaints in Singapore — i.e., that one must get a permit to 
enter Java, and another to visit the interior — did not trouble 
us at all. The British Consul, to whom we applied, at once 
arranged the whole matter, and at the same time supplied 
Andrew with such a lot of information that he was happy 
and contented for days afterwards. 

I feel like the children come home from a lovely party, or 




IN A GARDEN 



23 



An' he found a shilling in Flossie's curl 



-and 



rather like children used to be on such occasions, for I do not 

think they allow themselves such foolish enthusiasm nowadays, 

and the most I have been able to get out of them by the 

question " Did you enjoy yourself, dear?" is the admission 

that it was " not half bad." But I have memories of 

children coming home from wonderful Christmas parties, 

where a tree loaded with presents had given up its store, 

where a conjurer had performed marvellous tricks — "He 

took a likkle bird, auntie, a truly bird, and it wented away up 

his sleeve ! 

where the evening ended 

with the delirious delights 

of " Turn tlie trencher " 

and " General post." After 

such a party the children 

didn't know what to tell 

first to the listening auntie, 

or mother, or even to cross 

nurse, who insisted that 

bed- time was long past. That is how I feel about Java. 

There is so much to tell about that I don't know where to 

begin ! 

Let me tell you about the country first — the garden of the 
East — surely one of the fairest spots on God's big, wonderful, 
beautiful world ! It is a mountainous island. One never gets 
quite out of sight of the distant blue hills, rugged and broken 
in outline, for they are all of volcanic origin. It is a country 
of flowing water. Tiny streamlets trickle everywhere from 
the summits of those broken mountains; joining together 
they form numerous swift mountain streams, dashing and 
leaping at times, and at others flowing silently in some deep 
ravine overhung with masses of tropical foliage. Man has 
been veiy busy in this favoured land, and the hilly country, 




f^ot- bij' " 



•24 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



as well as the plains, is terraced into innumerable paddy- 
fields. Paddy grows best in shallow trickling water, so the 
whole country is flooded and the necessary drainage kept up 
])v an ingenious arrangement of levels. Every paddy-field 
has a mud bank round it to keep in the water, and a sort of 
overflow hole from which the stream descends to the next 
level. The country looks as if dotted with irregular-shaped 
pieces of looking-glass, for in the water mirror are reflected 

the blue sky, fleecy clouds and 
background of mountains. Here 
and there is a patch of vivid emerald 
which betrays the young paddy, 
and near by, perhaps, a bronze 
square which shows a ripe field. 
Rows of bare-legged people are at 
work. Their heads are protected 
with white cloths and their scanty 
garments are reflected in patches of 
ci'imson, orange or red-brown, which 
stain the mirror at their feet. 
Throuo;h these fields run the straiiiht- 
- est of roads, bordered by trees, and 

all day long a busy stream toils along this road. In the early 
morning they go laughing and chattering to market ; women 
M ith burdens strapped on their backs and often children also 
perched on their hips. Tiny children have a few chips of 
wood strapped on their little backs to accustom them to 
burden bearing, just as the baby Japanese carries a baby doll. 
The men hang their loads on either end of a long bamboo, 
and both men and women frequently carry sun umbrellas of 
oiled paper or gaudy cotton, which add still more notes of 
colour to the brilliant scene. The men are dressed like other 
Malays in jacket and sarong, or short drawers of cotton. 





PLANTING PADDY IN JAVA. 



IN A GARDEN 25 

Some wear (especially on grand occasions) long trousers of 
gaily patterned cotton, and the majority have crimson or 
yellow spotted handkerchiefs twisted into turbans on their 
heads. To the ordinary sarong and jacket (the latter, by 
the way, being often made very long) the Javanese women 
add a scarf, or slendang, which is worn over one shoulder, 
with a fringed end hanging down in front. Both in shape 
and in the rich bold harmony of colour, these garments 
resemble those worn by the Burmese. 

Javanese villages are often very neat and pretty. The 
huts, raised Malay fashion on piles and usually containing 
but one room, are enclosed in courtyards, and the whole 
village is fenced round with a palisading of bamboo. Every 
village is provided with a sort of watch-house in which hangs 
a wooden gong, and the beating of this, according to the 
number of strokes given, conveys news to the next village in 
case of fire, attack from an enemy, or any other danger. I 
was very anxious whenever we passed one of these alarm 
stations to go in and bang the gong and see what would 
happen, but Andrew would not permit it. There is a lack 
of scientific curiosity about Andrew despite his thirst for 
information. 

As I write London is plunged into one of her pet pea-soup 
fogs. This afternoon we got lost in Piccadilly, and wandered 
for hours, apparently round and round the central lamp-posts 
at Hyde Park Corner. Hemming us in on every side was 
thick, choking, yellow darkness, out of which came yells and 
the sound of trampling. Every now and then a grating, 
jarring noise' proclaimed a collision. 'Buses, looking like 
silhouettes of mediaeval towers, loomed up in unexpected 
quarters; red and violet eyes twinkled and died out; pale 
and emaciated rays of whiteness struggled through the 
blinding terrible fog. Clinging to each other in this Inferno, 



26 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

we felt terribly like two poor little lost souls in the cold 
blackness of infinite space. 

England, my country ; London, my home ; I love you 
still ! but, considering the way in which I have stood up for 
your climate when it has been maligned by all sorts and 
conditions of " furriners,'''' I think you might have let me 
down a little easier during the first winter months after I 
came from the sunny East. As I sit close to the fire and 
peer across the fog-darkened room at Andrew, I am forced 
to contrast the stuff with which my lungs are full with the 
air we breathed in Java. 

I have already enthused so much about Java that I am 
almost afraid — but no ! I must get away from the fog, so 
come along. 

Andrew and I are staying in a big, cool, clean hotel in 
Batavia. We have an enormous shady room, and our clothes 
are all hung on a handy screen provided with pegs. In the 
tropics one can never put anything one is wearing in drawers 
or boxes. Everything must be constantly airing, with 
the consequence that one's bedroom looks like an old-clothes 
shop. Andrew and I are sipping our morning coffee on a 
sort of verandah which runs round a court. The verandah 
is partitioned off, and most of the partitions are occupied. 
I must mention that the hour is about 6 a.:m. Andrew has 
bathed and dressed ; I am attired in a lace and muslin 
wrapper with flowing ribbons ; the occupants of other boxes 
are in pyjamas, sarongs and h'lhayas. The pyjamas, usually 
made full and loose and of flowered cotton or thin flannel, 
are clothing the manly forms of Dutch gentlemen ; the sarongs 
and kibayas are worn by their " vrouws." The sarong you 
know already ; it is tight behind and reaches to the ankles. 
The Vibaya is nothing more nor less than a dressing -jacket of 
primitive cut. Tight in the sleeves and absolutely shapeless 



IN A GARDEN 



27 



ill the body, it is constructed of lawn or muslin, trimmed 
with a little embroidery or lace, and fastened down the front 
with gold pins. It has an unseemly way of adhering to the 
figure, creasing and rounding with the curves of Nature. 
Now, all colonial Dutch ladies are not stout, but a vast 
majority who take no exercise and have excellent appetites 
must own the soft impeachment. It is customary for Dutch 
married ladies in the Netherlands Indies to wear this adapta- 
tion of the native garb until late in 
the afternoon. In it they go shopping 
during the morning, and may be seen 
taking their little stroll, They appear 
in it at luncheon, even at table d'hote, 
albeit there is a suggestive notice 
posted in all hotels in thi^ee languages 
to the effect that every one is requested 
to come to table decently dressed. I 
have not yet added the finishing- 
touch to the picture. They wear no 
stockings, but thrust their toes into 

httle heelless slippers! To see them shuffling; alone with 
pmk ankles and heels plainly visible was very trying to 
Andrew's Scottish Puritanism, but as we sat and sipped our 
perfectly delicious coffee he bore up bravely. 

In this hotel, as in others, the baths were situated at some 
distance from the bedrooms, and consequently there was a 
sort of bath parade. Fat and elderly Dutchmen in yellow 
pyjamas, with towels over their arms, who were unable to 
find a vacancy stopped to chat with stout and amiable vrouws, 
who sat rocking recklessly in wicker chairs. A few young 
Englishmen who lived in the hotel might be seen making 
furtive dashes and hiding behind flower-pots. A mcderjamilias, 
who occupied, with a tribe of little Hollanders, a suite on the 




28 



TAVO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



other side of the court, was busy hanging out all sorts of 
small (and a few large) garments to air on the line in front 
of her verandah. 

About 7 A.M. we breakfast: coffee or tea, bread, butter, 
potted meat, gingerbread, cold s()/i-hoi\ed eggs (Ugh !) and 
a variety of other " broken meats," all cold. Then we walk, 
drive, shop, sketch, and photo to our hearts' content, but 
by 11 a.:m. it is already very hot, and noon usually finds us 
in the shade of our verandah. Lunch is at one, and is the 
celebrated meal of the Dutch East Indies known as rice-table. 

Rice is the foundation. One 
takes a good big pile on a deep 
plate ; then follow dishes innumer- 
able. Boiled and roast fowl, of 
which one selects a joint, cuts off 
the meat on a small plate, and 
deposits it on the apex of the 
mound of rice ; fish cooked in 
various ways, curried meat and 
vegetables, a kind of forcemeat, 
eggs poached and curried, various sorts of pickles, the usual 
array oi samhals — dried fish, chilies, and other hot condiments; 
these are the most usual and invariable dishes at rice-table, 
and are all taken on the same plate, cut up, mixed with the 
rice, and eaten with a spoon. In the hotels I never saw less 
than ten dishes offered, and on more than one occasion I 
comited twenty. Truth, compels me to add that I very 
seldom saw a Dutchman help himself to all the dishes. 
Andrew did his best — and he is a famous trencherman — but 
even he was beaten by the vast agglomeration. After this 
comes very tough steak, salad and fried potatoes, cakes and 
coffee. It is one of the trials of Oriental life that one can't 
eat salad — nothing grown on the ground and watered by the 




IN A GARDEN 29 

Chinaman — unless it is cooked. The reasons are obvious, 
but why, oh why ! does the unsanitary Chinaman grow such 
crisp-looking- lettuce and rosy radishes ? 

After this meal, eaten in the middle of a hot day, medita- 
tion is best, and the whole of the Dutch East Indies goes to 
rest for two and a half solid hours. The Dutch themselves 
retire to their rooms and shut doors and windows. At 4.B0 
or 5 they arise, take another bath, and dress for the evening. 
I have seen young officials, who went back to their work 
about 5, return at 7, take another bath and get into clean 
pyjamas, in which costume they remained till dinner-time. 
At dinner-time they are in immaculate white duck, and that 
is their invariable costume unless they are paying calls, when 
they must put on the black tail-coats of civilisation. Many 
ladies, having spent so much of the day in the loose native 
garb, find tight European costume extremely uncomfortable, 
and will only put it on if they are going to pay calls. I have 
heard of cases in which the unaccustomed corset proved too 
much for the wearer at a dinner-party, and she had to be 
assisted out and have her laces promptly cut ! Dinner is 
from 8 to 9 — nearer the latter hour. Calls must be paid 
from 7 to 8, and it is not correct to leave until the dinner 
hour strikes. The favourite form of party is a dance, and the 
colonial Dutch are not only passionately fond of dancing, but 
do it very well. I was told that a married lady nmst always 
introduce her partner to her husband, unless, of course, they 
are acquainted ; otherwise, everything is very pleasant and 
informal. An English lady in Batavia told us she had en- 
deavoured to break up the stiffness of her '' At Home ''" days 
by having music, but as a rule custom was too strong to 
permit the ice to be broken. The etiquette of these " At 
Homes " seems to be that the ladies should sit in a circle of 
rocking-chairs, and that the men should group themselves at 



80 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

a little distance round the table where the pahits are. The 
pahit is a before-meals drink, and is tossed off in tiny glasses. 
It is composed, I believe, of gin and aniseed. I tasted it 
once, but never again. Andrew said it was horrible, but that, 
like whisky and soda, he took it medicinally, which speaks 
volumes for his strength of mind. 

Now, I think you have made a bowing acquaintance with 
the colonial Dutch, and we Avill start off up-country in search 
of that pure air of which the London fog (by force of con- 
trast) reminded me. 

Batavia is such a big city that it has a local railway con- 
necting its various parts. Once on the grand trunk line of 
Java, we soon leave behind the rich rolling plains and glisten- 
ing padd.y-fields, and begin to toil literally up the sides of 
mountains. On either side is spread a constantly changing 
panorama. Sometimes the green mountain runs sheer up on 
the right, terraced with tiny paddy-fields almost to its sum- 
mit, while on the left a wide undulating plain stretches away 
to blue foot-hills. Then a deep chasm opens on the right, 
we see far beneath us a rushing mountain torrent spanned 
b}^ a slender bamboo bridge. A deep and verdant valley 
opens before our eyes, a tiny brown village nestles in soft 
green foliage. Everywhere the rich luxuriant tropical growth 
of trees, palms, shrubs and flowers — rich, yet not wild, for 
man has made this fair country verily his own. Despite her 
natural grace and air of luxuriance, she is in all things 
obedient to his will, Java is truly a garden, and a well-kept 
garden, for she yields her fruit in due season, and is cultivated 
to the utmost of her capacity. 

The trains have three classes, and many Dutch travel 
second, but the first is sufficiently uncomfortable, being con- 
structed usually with two leather seats running the length 
of the carriage, divided in the middle by a head rest, so 



IN A GARDEN 31 

constructed that one's head couldn't possibly rest on it. In 
the two front corners it is possible to sit with some comfort 
with one's back to the engine, but always sideways. There are 
newer first class cars, with cane-backed seats and flap tables, 
more like our own but certainly not luxurious, and as there 
are no smoking carriages the men smoke everywhere, and the 
compartments get smoky and stuffy despite open windows. 
The Dutch do not seem to feel discomfort. The men in 
their white suits sit quietly smoking and reading, and at the 
end of a dozen hours are as neat and nearly as clean as when 
they started. 

The journey is a very long one, and during part of the day 
hot and dusty. Several ladies and gentlemen are in our com- 
partment, the latter in spotless ducks, the former in cotton 
dressing-gowns, which appear to be (juite en regie for travel- 
ling. They do not often wear hats, but for travelling a 
toque is the favourite complement to the " Mother Hubbard," 
as these cotton wrappers are called. I once saw a lady who 
pained me very much. She wore a pink cotton " Mother 
Hubbard," a Parisian toque, black spotted veil and diamond 
earrings. I am bound to confess that whereas I, in my tight- 
fitting shirt and blue skirt, not only found the journey ex- 
tremely tiring, but fidgeted Andrew almost out of his wits, 
the Dutch ladies, having settled as it were in a gelatinous 
heap in either corner, hardly moved for the rest of the day. 

Their luggage consists chiefly of small flat tin boxes, 
enamelled yellow : a Saratoga trunk would create a sensation 
among the porters here, or rather the miscellaneous herd that 
descends upon one's baggage. One man, one burden, is their 
motto, and the smallest parcel must have an individual 
porter who expects an individual tip ! 

We buy quantities of fruit as we go along, and have a 
perfectly vile meal served to us in a luncheon-basket at one 



32 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

of the stations. At six o'clock, having been steadily puffing 
up mountains all day, the engine is apparently tired, so 
although some passengers have only a few miles to go we are 
all bundled out and made to spend the night at a small 
railwav hotel. This is the invariable procedure ; and no one 
but ourselves seems to resent it in the least. The Dutch 
ladies slip thankfully into their sarong's and Vihayas^ the 
Dutch gentlemen light fresh cigars and begin to call for 
pahits, and we sit in rocking-chairs, wondering hungrily when 
our dinner will be ready, and trying meanwhile to defend 
ourselves from the mosquitoes. I go straight to bed after a 
most indifferent meal, and fall asleep in the act of declaring 
that I shall never close my eyes in that hot stuffy room. 

It is one of the numerous blessings which Providence 
bestows on Andrew and myself that we can sleep practically 
anywhere and anyhow. I am inclined to think that if people 
would only realise that to pass " a sleepless night " does not 
cast a halo of romance round the sufferer, that they would 
give up boasting of such things, and sometimes might even 
sleep better. "My dear, I never slept a wink, and your 
father was snoring away all night ! "" 1 wonder if I shall ever 
in the dim future find myself repeating the well-worn formula 
to little Andrews and Ethels ! When I hear of people who 
travel with their own beds and pillows 1 feel a pang of genuine 
pity, Onlv think of it, ye insomnic ones ! Andrew and I, 
during one of our Eastern wanderings, slept in no less than 
forty-two different beds and berths, and I can only recollect 
some half-dozen nights which by any stretch of the imagination 
could be called bad. Even stray mosquitoes inside a stuffy 
net have proved insufficient to break my slumbers, and in 
consequence I have more than once awoke to find my delicate 
regular features accentuated by certain unnecessary red bumps. 

While I am on the subject of beds, let me describe the 



IN A GARDEN 33 

Dutch colonial variety. It is almost square, and has four 
posts like the old English ones ; a mattress and two very 
hard pillows are covered in the whitest of linen, and a long 
bolster is placed down the middle. This is not to prevent 
two people from fighting, though I well remember adopting 
the same plan in my childhood when all other attempts to 
define .a common frontier with my sister had failed. The 
bolster is known as the " Dutch wife,"" and is used in many 
parts of the Far East and in India as a rest for hot and 
weary limbs. On a hot night it is an unspeakable relief 
to curl one leg round a cool " Dutch wife.'" A rug is always 
provided, and is necessary even in the hottest climes. In 
Manila, for instance, even in the summer, there is a cool, 
delicious moment at about two in the morning, when one 
is glad to draw up a light rug. In the higher towns of Java 
it is possible to sleep with a rug all night, and when the 
mountain health-resorts are reached blankets and quilts are 
necessary. 

The railway joiu'ney resumed, let us suppose that we are 
going to Tosari, a famous health-resort. As a matter of 
fact this place must be visited from Sourabaya^ which is at 
the extreme east of Java, as Batavia is at the west. But I 
am not going to tell you about Sourabaya at all ; it is hot, 
rather ugly, has steam trams and busy wharves, and presents 
no particularly novel features. 

To get to Tosari one leaves the railway-line about forty miles 
from Sourabaya and takes a sort of dogcart. These dogcarts 
are drawn by rat-like though wiry ponies, one being usually 
harnessed to the cart, while another is attached by ropes to 
the side — a most primitive pair. The driver sits in front 
and the passengers behind, sometimes on a little seat arranged 
phaeton-fashion and sometimes with back to the horses. Now, 
Andrew is not exactly a feather-weight, and I am what is 

c 



34 TWO OX THEIR TRAVELS 

politely termed a "tine young woman/' Later on I shall 
doubtless be called *' a fat old woman/' but at present the 
courtesy due to vouth preserves me from such insult. When 
we sit together on a back seat, the whole conveyance has a 
tendencv to collapse backwards and rear both the jionies in 
the air. We tried to ride in front, and compelled the driver 
to hang on behind and drive over one wheel, but the arrange- 
ment was unsatisfactory, for the reins were always getting 
mixed up with the oft'-ponv's tail. Then Andrew mounted 
in front and made the driver squat beside him. bat this 
aroused so much amusement and derision in the village that 
for the honour of Europe we were obliged to. desist. At 
last we decided to take two dogcarts, and so mounted we 
arrived at the half-wa\- house after a long and very bum])y 
drive, part of it so steep that I implored Andrew to get out 
of his dogcart and ease the ponies. Andrew argued the 
subject and did not get out, which is unusual. As a rule, 
the minute he argues — with me — he is lost. The fact that 
we were in separate dogcarts had probablv something to do 
with his temporary triumph. 

The half-way house is called Poespoh and is 2200 feet 
above the sea. The latter part of our drive being passed in 
drenching rain, we were not able to see much of the country, 
but after dinner in the verv clean and comfortable hotel, we 
found that the weather had cleared and were able to see in the 
moonlight the great volcanic peaks at whose feet we seemed to 
nestle, while below us the country stretched away in infinite 
gradations of grev. The next part of the journev must be 
done on horseback, or rather pony-back, and takes about 
three hours. The steep and rocky road winds up, first through 
thick forests, affording every now and then exquisite glimpses 
of broken gorges with splashing waterfalls, or, perhaps, through 
a break in the thick green, a panoramic view of the country 



IN A GARDEN 35 

below. Up and up, out on to a more open road, twisting 
along the smooth sides of the mountains through fields of 
maize and hill-paddy. Suddenly I saw a small blue flower 
growing at our feet and almost crushed by my pony's hoois. 
A harebell — so fai- from bonnie Scotland ! It seems hard to 
realise that this little familiar flower is not, like ourselves, a 
stranger in this wonderful tropical country ; but many flowers 
and trees of species similar to our own grow in this mountainous 
region, where the air is cold and keen even in the most brilliant 
sun. The mountain ash overshadows green glades of bracken; 
the forget-me-not lurks in moist ditches ; daisies and butter- 
cups peep out unexpectedly, and fragile wild roses twine with 
convolvulus. 

At last we have arrived at the point for which we set out 
many pages ago ! London, with dirt and fog, the choking 
Underground and the draughty, stufly Tube are left behind. 
We are at Tosari, perched as it were on the very sunnnit of 
a mountain, while all around us is spread a vast amphitheatre 
of giants — great towering massive peaks, broken and jagged, 
some thickly wooded with rich green, others scarred and 
seamed with lava streams. As for the colouring, it is in- 
describable. The rarity of the atmosphere, the immense 
distances to which we can see, the blazing sunlight and blue 
sky of the tropics, all combine to produce an effect of deep, 
clear, pure colouring which defies all description. 

If one does one's duty properly, after spending a night at 
Tosari, one ascends the Bromo, a volcanic crater which is 
some 7000 feet above the sea-level. I made that ascent in 
the spirit. The flesh was still rebellious after my ride, and 
I am inclineci to think that Andrew's was the same. I tried 
hard to persuade him to make the ascent. I appealed to his 
Highland blood, and wondered how a scion of a noble 
mountain race could bear to sit in an easy chair with his feet 



36 TA¥0 ON THEIR TRAVELS 

oil another, while splendid hills called him to come and 
conquer. In vain, Andrew only settled himself more com- 
fortably, and refusing to be drawn into an argument, said 
sentimentally that he wanted to stay with his dear wife ! 
Because of his conduct, dear reader, I can't tell you about the ** 
Bromo, but I have reason to believe that people go there and 
come back very sore and tired and cross, but that, when they get 
to a safe distance and are talking to people who have never 
been, they say it is the most delightful little trip possible. 



CHAPTER IV 



MOEE ABOUT THE GARDEN 

An ancient Javanese town— The palace of the Sultan— We 
go for a drive— Our carriage and four— Boro-Bodor— 
Buddha " at home " — A peep into the fourteenth century — 
Stories in stone — Caught in the rain — A wayside dancer — 
Memories— The Spanish gitana at Granada — Burmese affini- 
ties—At Garoet — Of happiness and climate — Stamford Raffles 



NLESS we are to stay in Ja^-a for 
the rest of this book I must hurry 
on. We have as yet only visited 
Batavia and this mountain villaee. 



I want you to see Djokjakarta, 
(whose crackjaw name is familiarly 
abbreviated into Djokja) to visit 
the residence of the Sultan there, 
and see his funny tumbledown palace 
and the courtiers stalking about in 
the quaintest costumes. They have a great way of picking 
up one garment of European wear, such as a battered hat, or 
blue coat with brass buttons, and wearing it together with 
their native dress. Policemen, even in full uniform, wear a 
red handkerchief knotted round their heads, and perch a 
little cap on the top, and soldiers do the same with their 
helmets. Djokja is a very ancient town, and was the centre 




38 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

of a great sultanate. The palace is in the middle of a sort 
of walled city, if indeed such high-sounding names as 
" palace " and "city "can be applied to these places at all. 
There are ruins of a water tower with quaint baths and 
fountains ; and there is a Avonderful native market where the 
native-spun and dyed cottons are hung up for sale along with 
fruit, cakes, and every other article for which the Javanese 
can find use. Altogether there is plenty of sport for the 
snap-shotter or material for sketching. 

The following is from mv diary, written on the Aerandah 
of our room in the spacious, comfortable hotel ; looking out 
on a square, where in the shadow of a huge tree, a brown 
mother, in garments of tawny red and yellow, 
croons over her brown baby. 

This morning we drove about fifteen miles to 
see the famous Hindu temple of Boro-Bodor, 
built at the time that Buddhism was the religion 
of Java and Hindu influence supreme. Our 
equipage was most imposing, for we had an 
open victoria with four ponies. 

The driver was smartly attired in blue cotton, with a red 
handkerchief twisted about his head and a shiny yellow hat 
shaped like a bowl. The " footman "" in similar costume 
hung on behind, and at intervals would drop down, run to 
the front and urge on the horses with the whip and shouts 
of " Ir-r-e — ir-)'-re — yok — yok ! "^ The cracking of the whip is 
a great science with Malay drivers, and indeed their whole 
demeanour on such an occasion is full of importance, and 
everything is done with the greatest show of haste and anv 
amount of bustle and talk. 

Andrew and I tried to look as if we drove in a carriage 
and four every day, and even felt a little hurt when the 
country people as we passed, did not kneel or crouch down 





Q 
W 

< 

H 

W 
G 

2 



MORE ABOUT THE GARDEN 39 

as they would have done had we been Dutch officials or 
Malay nobles. This custom has been commented on as 
illustrating the tyranny of the Dutch, but as a matter of 
fact it is merely the expression of respect to their social 
superiors to which most Orientals were accustomed. In 
Burmah, as in Java, a native riding a horse would dismount 
on meeting a European or a noble, and it cannot be said 
that more freedom of manner has improved their morals. 

Half way we halt for a change of horses, which is effected 
in a charming village where a native market is being held 
under the shade of some big trees. Our second relay of 
horses carries us to a point where the road suddenly turns 
and seems to make directly for a blue mountain which has 
hung for some time to one side of our route. As we get 
nearer to it we are anxiously on the look out for Boro- 
Bodor ; and at last, after plunging through a village where 
we see the ruined temple of Mendort, we emerge on the other 
side in a long straight avenue ascending steeply at the far 
end. With crack of whip and many shouts our ponies are 
urged to a gallop up this hill, and then with a sharp turn 
we are whirled along a road twisting round a hill. Up and 
up we go till with a final spurt we are pulled up opposite a 
little whitewashed bungalow, the Pasangralian, or Rest 
House, and facing it, on the crest of the hill, stands the 
wonderful temple of Boro-Bodor. 

The first impression is of a huge reddish-grey mass, rising 
in a confused tangle to a small round dome, half broken. A 
broad flight of stone steps faces us, and as we draw nearer we 
perceive the design of the temple. It is, as it were, the crown 
of the hill on which it stands, and consists of six quad- 
rangular walls, diminishing as the hill is ascended and having 
terraces between them. The two first terraces are wide and 
open, and all round them are carvings in bas-relief. The 



40 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

third, fourth and fifth have a sort of stone balustrade, the 
inside of which is also carved. We ascend from one terrace 
to another by steep steps under carved and broken arches. 
The upper terraces are not carved, but contain at intervals 
curious cupolas of stone lattice- work, intended to contain 
images of Buddha. There are three circles of these, sixty- 
two cupolas in all, and then the last terrace is reached, and 
we walk round the ruined central cupola and note that its 
lower stones are carved in the likeness of a flower-cup — a 
lotus no doubt, of which the cupola itself forms the yet un- 
opened bud. In the hollow interior of this, under half- 
falling stones and buried to the neck in earth is a large 
Buddha, and so life-like did it appear, smiling suddenly out 
of the darkness, that I gave a cry of surprise, and for the 
moment thought it alive. Headless images of the god, 
carved in black stone sit all round the temple, in niches, or 
on the terraces. Some of the figures are not headless, and 
all have the same gentle ineffable smile, the calm peaceful air 
and half womanish figure. The hands lie peacefully in the 
lap, or are half raised — carved flat against the body with out- 
turned palms. This gentle, beautiful, smiling deity seems a 
fit emblem of the country in which it has found a home. We 
look around us from the height at which we stand, and below 
us we see the green plain, the tree-fringed road, the gleaming 
water on paddy fields. This plain is fenced in by a ring of 
stately mountains, the hill on which we stand being a spur 
of one of them. We can look all round us and see the ever- 
lasting hills on every side, gleaming with purples and lustrous 
silver as the sun pierces the clouds that hang over them. 
Truly, these old Hindoos knew how to choose a site for their 
temple ! 

As we walk slowly round the terraces we are struck with 
the wonderful reality of the sculpture. The highest have no 



«• 



mm: ':»- 



Ui^ 





A MOUNTAIN ROAD, JAVA. 



MORE ABOUT THE GARDEN 41 

carving, only the Buddhas in their stone cages ; the three 
next are chiefly taken up with representations of Buddha in 
many attitudes and accompanied by various figures, male 
and female, some apparently resting upon clouds. But the 
lowest terrace save one is a gallery of pictures of life as it 
was in those days— the guide-book says it is the liistory of 
Buddha from his birth to his Nirvana, but that does not 
matter. Here we have the daily life of men and women. 
They lie at rest upon a sort of trestle — the charpoy of 
Hindustan — slaves fanning them with scented grass fans, 
such as one buys to-day in the Indian bazaars. They sit at 
their ease while dancing-girls delight them. The dancing 
figure is drawn with none of the chic and elan with which a 
modern French sculptor would present her; there is no 
attempt to give the swirl of skirts or a distorted twist of the 
body, and yet half close the eyes, and this rudely and forcibly 
lined figure, with arms held stiffly down and narrow drapery 
is actually dancing, dancing with the slow, dreamy turns, the 
bendmg hands and feet of the Oriental. Then we have 
sterner scenes ; an archer is bending his bow — we can feel 
the straining of the wood ; a ship is beating up against a 
storm, her rigging quaintly suggested, her great pot-bellied 
sides and heavy timbering reminding us of the old days when 
such ships sailed from Tyre and Sidon, and the spirit of 
enterprise tempted men to trust themselves to the unknown 
ocean in these clumsy picturesque vessels. We are left in no 
doubt as to the manner of men who carved these pictures. 
Here they are on every side, with large eyes and hooked 
noses; wide moustached and often bearded warriors are 
they, with many -folded turbans, quite unlike the round- 
faced, flat-nosed Malay, with his protruding mouth and 
scanty beard. 

There are many corners in these terraces, and round one of 



42 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



them we come on a scene in our })icture-gallery which sets us 
laughing. It is a scramble of some sort, men are running 
and tumbling over each other. Near by we have Buddha as 

calm and collected as ever, 
and with a soup-plate halo 
round the back of his head, 
but one feels he must in 
some way be disturbed by 
that merry crowd ! The 
pictures number over 400 
on this terrace, so time will 
not allow anything like a 
full description ; but we 
have mothers holding their 
babies, kings going out to 
war on their elephants, girls 
whispering to each other, or 
lying in graceful attitudes 
asleep, their heads pillowed 
on each other^s shoulders — 
one is awake, and stretches 
out her arm to make her 
playmate more comfortable. 
Animals and birds come to 
pav their devoirs to the 
god ; elephants are numer- 
ous, and besides there are 
monkeys, buffaloes, deer, peacocks, and other animals. Some 
of the carvings seem to represent fables or stories ; for 
instance, a ship is crowded with men in evident terror, one is 
swarming up the side in tremendous haste, a big fish with 
gaping jaws and terrible teeth threatens them. A turtle is 
carved in the previous panel, and just after that we see that 




MORE ABOUT THE GARDEN 43 

the ship has evidently been wrecked for the crew are only 
saved by climbing on to the turtle's back, where they 
maintain a precarious position. The last panel shows the 
rescued mariners apparently worshipping the turtle. 

It is all so full of life ; that is what surprises us. This big 
dead pile of a forgotten people, with its empty ruined 
terraces, is silent until we turn to the walls, and then how 
eloquent do the stones become. The terraces are crowded — 
crowded with figures ; the place is alive with them. They 
are swarming round these walls, and we can almost hear the 
eager accents of their strange speech. The characteristic of 
these remarkable sculptures, especially those of the second 
terrace, which are some of the best preserved, is the uncon- 
ventionality of treatment, the wealth of imagination, and the 
naturalness of expression. The figures are arranged without 
any particular relation to the canons of art, but the grouping 
is always effective. The story is told first — the reclining 
figure in the centre and the slave girl with the fan at her 
feet ; then the rest of the panel is filled in with attendants 
as naturally as possible, every figure falling into its place. 
The skill in drawing is sometimes remarkable, as in the 
instance of a kneeling slave, whose bare curved back and 
foreshortened leg is turned to us, the soles of his feet outwards, 
the whole attitude remarkably lifelike. Here and there are 
conventional ornaments chiselled out, and these seemed to me 
more delicate than the carvings. The bas-relief ornaments 
which represent Buddha's temples in the upper terraces are 
of the usual type of Hindu-Buddhist temples — ornate and 
rather uncouth, but picturesque. 

Tradition assigns this temple to about the fourteenth 
century a.d. It was evidently dedicated solely to Buddha, 
and contains no images of other gods such as are found in 
profusion in other temples in Java, 



44 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

To the English belongs the honour of having first dis- 
covered these carvings, which had been covered with earth, 
probably by the last worshippers of Buddha. Kecent visitors 
to the Hindu temples at Brambanan, which are as remarkable 
as Boro-Bodor, describe how they found little offerings of 
betel-nut laid before the shrines of certain o-ods. Little is 
done by the Dutch to preserve these unique remains, which 
are rapidly falling into decay. The rain saturating the 
earthen core and percolating through the outer shell of 
masonry must be gradually undermining the whole structure. 

Talking about rain, it certainly knows how to rain in Java. 
This is the rainy season, but is unusually dry, luckily for us. 
The rain begins regularly every afternoon at about 1.30 imm. 
and continues steadily till five o'clock, when the sun comes 
out again. As we returned from Boro-Bodor the torrent 
came down, and in a few minutes the roads were rushing 
rivers, through which the ponies plunged at a gallop and the 
carriage followed splashing and bumping. We had the hood 
up and a mackintosh apron, but little streams trickled in 
and we were very wet. Our driver and his aide-de-camp 
were of course wet to the skin, but did not seem to mind, 
and in a short time the sun came out and dried us all up 
again with wonderful quickness. 

Just one more sketch, this time from the wayside scenes 
which are a never- failing delight in this picturesque land. 
Dancing, I may mention, is a favourite entertainment of the 
Javanese, and Court dancers are employed bv the Sultans. 
These are usually attired in wonderful gilt tinsel head-dresses, 
and perform weird gyrations, while the play-actors, who also 
provide popular entertainment, are attired in long robes and 
wear grotesque masks. Puppets and dancing dolls, all hideous 
and fantastic, are in high favour, and I believe they are made 
to enact plays of a semi-religious, semi-historical character 



MORE ABOUT THE GARDEN 45 

dating from Hindu times, which are now quite beyond the 
real comprehension of the Javanese. As I have no time now 
to describe all these varied entertainments with which the 
merry, laughter-loving Javanese beguile the hours, I will give 
merely a little picture of a travelling company and dancing- 
girl, performing by the wayside near a village. 

A noise is heard along the road, a sort of chanting accom- 
panied by the musical monotonous notes of a native zither 
and the tom-toming of a drum. It is a dancing-girl, and 
a group gathers round her as she stands by the wayside. We 
must stop, too, and look over the heads of the low-statured 
Malays to see the sight. We see a slight girl of about eleven 
or twelve years, with a pretty, mignonne little dark face, sleek 
black hair twisted up with silver pins, slender brown arms 
and bare shoulders, and the tiniest little hands, whose red- 
stained fingers are constantly outspread and quivering. She 
wears a blue and yellow sarong, a tight sort of velvet bodice, 
which comes over her hips and is fastened with a silver belt. 
She has a pale blue slendang wound round her shoulders and 
passed through her belt, and this she uses every now and 
then, waving it, letting it fill out with the breeze, or giving 
the falling end a saucy little toss out behind. We are instantly 
transported in imagination to a grassy knoll outside a ruined 
Moorish palace in Southern Spain, where a group of ragged 
children is playing, and one brown-faced imp with ragged 
black locks poses in their midst as a danseuse, with arms 
bent out from the elbows and body twisting and turning as 
the little head is held stifHy on one side. There is no quick 
step, the unshod feet are twisted from heel to toe with supple 
stiffness, the body turns, the arms are held out, the outstretched 
hands with quivering little fingers are bent sharply up from 
the wrists. The child is a gipsy, one of the strange race 
whose origin is so obscure. She has seen her elder sisters, in 



46 T\¥0 ON THEIR TRAVELS 

operatic clothes donned for the benefit of the tourist, dance 
such a dance as this, such a dance as her people nnist have 
brought from the sunny East. The ragged imp is supremely 
unconscious ; she has no trappings to aid her, no band to 
accompany her save the clapping hands of her playmates. 
The Malay child is attired in a costume which seems to her 
o-ors:eous. She has half a dozen men seated round her whose 
rude instruments keep up a continuous rhythm, and who 
every now and then break into a plaintive' chant. She has 
the supreme self-control, the little air of unconscious n)annerism 
of a trained performer; she is lithe and graceful, where the 
other can barely conceal under her rags the robust limbs of 
her race. And yet — the likeness is remarkable ; and while 
we watch the sleek, slender, dainty little Malay, full of the 
repose, the dignity, the colour of the East, she gives that 
twitch to her falling scarf, and we remember the saucy t^\ irl 
of her rags w ith which the little g'ltana delighted us. 

Much in all these scenes reminds one vividly of Burma. 
Not only the costumes — ^the sarongs, and many-coloured 
cotton coats of both sexes, and the graceful scarf twisted over 
one shoulder and under the arms with ends hanging down ; 
not only many of the faces that peer up from under the 
broad basket hats ; but the music, the musical zither, the 
full mellow tones of gongs, beaten sometimes in the evening, 
and dying away in circles of perfect musical sound between 
each clang ; the tom-toming of bamboo drums, and the 
monotonous chanting on three or four notes with which a 
native band accompanies its music ; even the dancing-girl 
with a slight variation of costume might be Burmese. 

Space forbids that I should write any more about Java, 
and yet I have told }^ou very little of all there is to see. I 
should like to linger again in spirit at Garoet, a lovely 
village among hills. Garoet, with flower-emblossomed 




< 

c 

< 

"■J 
>^ 

C 
D 



MOllE ABOUT THE GARDEN 47 

bungalows, with long white roads between paddy fields which 
reflect the blue mountains on either side. Garoet is in the 
mountains, but one doesn''t have to walk up-hill every time 
one goes out. The air sparkles ; it is like champagne. One 
never realises the possibilities of life until one breathes such 
air. Well do I remember one early morning when we drove 
through a landscape still scintillating with dewy freshness. 
The gay colours, the fresh pure air, the exquisite landscape 
of mountain, river and field, ever new and ever changing, ail 
these were enough in themselves to make happiness, but 
added to that I had youth, health, love, and that modest 
competence which is the only true wealth Life seemed 
almost too full of pleasure and beauty, and it is hard at such 
times to realise the pain and suffering of the world. 

I want before we leave this lovely island of Java to take 
mv reader to a grave. Many people have perhaps forgotten 
that for a short period an Englishman once ruled Java, but 
Stamford Raffles has left many marks on the land. This is 
neither the time nor the place to tell of his work. Unsuc- 
cessful in some w^ays he yet accomplished more than many 
who are deemed successes. He was the father and founder of 
Singapore, and one of Britain's real Empire-builders. In the 
far-famed botanical gardens of Buitenzorg, said to be the 
finest tropical gardens in the world, is the tomb of his first 
wife, and standing beside this lonely English grave Andrew 
told me of Stamford Raffles'' life, of how misfortune dogged 
him, critics aspersed him and ill-health pursued him. His 
beloved children by a second wife died one after the other, 
his money affairs went wrong, and finally, on leaving his post 
at Bencoolen in Sumatra (where he was sent when recalled 
from Java), the vessel caught fire, and he and his wife and 
surviving child escaped only with their lives, losing in the 
conflagration not only all their personal effects, jewellery and 



48 TWO ON THEIR TRAA ELS 

papers, but priceless collections of all sorts, on which Raffles 
had been engaged for thirty years. Under all afflictions, 
however, it is recorded that he remained constant and cheer- 
ful, and his tireless energy enabled him to begin afresh his 
collections and writings. Few people know that it is to the 
initiative of the only British Governor of Java, the explorer 
of Sumatra and founder of Singapore, that we owe the 
foundation of the Zoological Gardens in London. 



CHAPTER V 

THE FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 

Of boiTOwing — The Swalloir and her crew — Dolcfi-far-identc 
— Among the isles — We ship a pirate— He runs lis agj;'aund 
— A voyage of discovery — On the Borneo cbast — Ah Ting: — 
We lose our way, our food and our tempers — A forlorn hope 
— Andi-ew disappears — Ah Ting as a Job's comforter — Pro- 
priety and the engineer — A wet night — A wetter morning — 
I am hungry — The engineer's illness — And recovery — 
Andrew to the rescue — An heroic figure-- Andrew and Ah 
Ting pack up— Consequences — We board the Sane Brunei ^ 
— Farewell to the Suxdloir 

T is quite impossible in this little book, which 
does not pretend to be anything more than a 
series of impressions, to give any idea of all 
the places visited by Andrew and myself during 
our protracted wanderings in the Malay archi- 
pelago, and already I have indulged too much 
in description. Let me hope that R. L. Stevenson is not 
right when he says that no one wants to read about scenery. 
No two people, he says, ever talked for any length of time 
about scenery, and I have been talking at unconscionable 
length about little else; but before I begin to tell of a part 
of our journey in which the human interest predominates, I 
must recite the ignominious end of our yachting expedition 




50 TWO ON THEIK TRAVELS 

among the Western Pacific isles, and by way of contrast with 
Java must describe another Dutch possession in the East. 
Andrew insists on this. He says any one who reads my 
eulogies of the Dutch and Java might call me a pro-Boer, 
unless I gave the dark side of the picture as well. 

Andrew has a marvellous capacity for borrowing — not 
money, but everything else. When I married him I can 
safely assert that hardly two articles of his underclothing 
bore the same initials, while his handkerchiefs were a sort of 
index to his friendships. He has a way with 
him that inspires confidence, and people seem 
perfectly willing to lend him anything, from a 
house and servants down to a collar-stud. An- 
drew has, I fear, traded on this peculiarity, and 
has been accustomed throughout life to travel 
comfortably through the world, wearing other 
'" "'' '"' ~'' '^''""°- men's dress-shirts. I was not at all surprised, 
therefore, when he announced one day at Sourabaya that 
some one had just lent him a steam yacht. The Swallow 
was a trim little craft, manned entirely by Malays with the 
exception of a Scots engineer. If there is a ship of any kind 
afloat in Eastern waters which does not boast a Scots 
engineer she ought to be put under a glass case, or exhibited 
at the next EarPs Court show. Of this more anon. At 
present Andrew and I are engaged in stocking the Swallow 
with provisions and engaging a servant to assist the ship's 
cook and generally look after us. Ah Ting was the name of 
the veteran Chinaman, who was recommended to us as an old 
and experienced servant. He looked about sixty, but was 
probably less. His queer, wrinkled old face had a perpetual 
expression of perplexity, and his square figure with stiff* legs 
and curious waddling gait made him a most comic sight. 
His English was about as limited as my Malay, but between 




FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 51 



the two we managed to get along. Andrew never could 
stand Ah Ting. The old fellow's slow movements, shifty 
glance and invariable excuses, given always with a martyred 
air whenever discovered in a dereliction of duty, annoyed the 
great Bashaw, who had been used to the smartest of Chinese 
and Hindu servants. Of course Ah Ting wanted a little 
money in advance " to buy rice," although we had reason to 
know that he was an exceedingly " warm " man. He also 
made a great fuss about getting fresh fruit 
and fish for us, and managed to get allowances 
from both of us for this purpose. 

We had a most successftd little cruise 
among the less frequented islands of Malaysia. 
At most of them a Dutch Resident and a few 
traders gave a flavour of civilisation to the 
scene, but we lived entirely on the Sivalloic\ 
contenting ourselves with the lazy life ; steam- 
ing through blue waters, anchoring off the thickly wooded 
islands and watching the swarms of little boats which 
quickly surrounded the yacht with loads of fruit and fish. 
Some day perhaps I may return to those sunny days and tell 
of the spice groves, the native markets held in boats ; the 
islands where Buddha is still worshipped and caste distinctions 
are found ; of Dobbo, where annually hundreds of natives 







meet for a great water fair. 



and all the other strange and 



beautiful sights of the Malay islands. But now we must 
hurry on to the last days of our cruise on the Swallow. We 
were anxious, from the north coast of Celebes, to get to 
Dutch Borneo. From there we hoped to find a ship to take 
us back to Singapore, since the Swalloxv was due to meet her 
master at Macassar. Now, Celebes is the home of a daring 
race of seamen known as Bugis, and as these, until very 
recent times, were pirates and accustomed to raid the coast 



52 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

of Borneo, we thought we were safe in trusting one to act as 
our pilot. He would take us, he said, straight toBoelongan. 
Therefore, it was with easy minds that we sighted the low- 
lying Borneo coast, and soon our pilot informed us that we 
were opposite the Boelongan river. The verv antiquated 
charts belonging to the yacht informed us that a sand-bar 
stietched across the mouth of this river and could only be 
crossed at high tide, and, sure enough, at that moment we 
slid with a ierk into somethins* ! The en(i;ineer 
gave a yell, and in a few seconds the reversing 
engines pulled us off again, but by this time 
our pilot had begun to get nervous and said 
he thought the river was " over there,"' 
])ointing vaguely down the coast. Andrew 
and the engineer then deposed the ex-pirate, 
and calling for the old Malay captain held a 
council of war. After manoeuvring for some 
time with various instruments about which they all seemed 
equally ignorant, they decided that we were altogether in 
the wrong latitude, and accordingly put out to sea, and then 
begaii to steaui slowly down the coast. Afraid of missing 
the river's mouth in the dark, we anchored for the night 
under the lee of a small island, and next morning proceeded 
on the voyage of discovery. At tiffin a disagreeable fact was 
disclosed. The stock of bread was all gone, and Ah Ting 
had no flour to make more. We tiffined unpleasantly off 
sweet biscuits and fish. About four o'clock we sighted a 
distinct opening in the coast, and the pilot came rushing up, 
pointing to it and saying " Boelongan "" with a triumphant 
air. Very cautiously we steamed in, and found ourselves in 
a sort of fork, with an island in the middle and several narrow 
passages apparently meandering inland. The question was 
— which ? And the place by no means corresponded with 




FLIGHT OF THE Sir ALLOW 53 

descriptions we had had. A few native boats with wretched- 
looking Malays on board shot out from the reeds and rushes, 
and we could see that they were fishers. Then came a fair- 
sized boat with a small covered place at one end and the 
other heaped with a miscellaneous assortment of tinned meat, 
milk, pots, pans, fruit, cloth and cottons. A Chinaman 
paddled at one end'aild evidently was the owner of this float- 
ing store. It was explained to us that the enterprising John 
travels thus among the scattered fisher-folk of the coasts 
and rivers, and barters w'ith them for gutta, edible moss 
which grows on the coral reefs, and birds' nests. These 
they collect and keep for him, and no doubt he makes an 
excellent thing out of the exchange, since the articles he gets 
command a high price in China. What is most striking, 
however, is the daring way in which a solitary Chinaman 
trades alone and unprotected among these wild and lawless 
Malays— many pirates, and others sea-Dyaks, with an unen- 
viable reputation as head-hunters. At one isolated point on 
the East Borneo coast a Chinaman actually estabhshed a 
store. Occasional Chinese junks called in there, and he col- 
lected jungle produce from the natives and disposed of it to 
the traders who came. He prospered, and built a large go- 
down ; began to exercise authority over the whole neighbour- 
hood, and kept excellent order. At last, however, he began 
to press the lax Malays for what vi^as due to him. Many 
owed him money, and all were more or less in his debt. One 
night his house and store were set on fire and he himself 
murdered. The Malays thought they had got rid of their 
tyrant. But no ! By one of the first junks arrived another 
patient, courteous Chinaman, who rebuilt the go-downs and 
started to trade in the old way. I believe he is there still, 
but it must be hoped that he gives unlimited credit. 

From the natives who Avere paddling about we elicited the 



54 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

folJowing information. They knew nothing of Boelongan, 
but were quite sure the " big ship " could not go up any of 
the channels. The pilot, who had been very cock-a-hoop up 
to the present, strutting about on deck with an "alone I 
done it " air, now disappeared suddenly and was not to be 
found, though the engineer sought him high and low, breathing- 
Vengeance. We had no option save to anchor for the night, 
and Ah Ting announced the mournful news that we had 
arrived at our penultimate tin of soup and that the last fowl 
had just died. We dined chiefly off* tinned sausages and 
sweet potatoes, the latter also the last of our vegetables. 
Next morning we again put out to sea and proceeded to 
steam down the coast, but soon after a meagre lunch of 
biscuits, sardines, and jam, which reminded me of art-student 
days, we sighted a series of wide openings in the coast 
corresponding with what we had heard of the Boelongan 
delta. It was decided that we should anchor where we were 
— we had steamed in as near as we dared to the supposed 
sand-bar, and could see the line of the breakers and a buoy 
bobbing about not far off — and that Andrew in the lifeboat 
should go nearer in and endeavour to find natives to guide 
us. I watched the boat growing smaller and smaller until it 
was only just in sight and I could no longer distinguish 
Andrew"'s white coat and sun-hat. Suddenly a shout was 
heard and the engineer came springing on deck. " There's a 
ship over yonder," he said, and sure enough, several miles up 
the coast, we could see a large vessel steam slowly out of one 
of the openings. Once clear she apparently anchored, and 
we presumed that she was waiting for high tide to cross the 
bar. The question was how to attract Andrew. In the 
somewhat forlorn hope that one of the sailors would under- 
stand, we hastily got out the signal-book and ran up "Return,'"' 
and to our joy we saw that the boat was actually turning 



FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 55 

back ; but it was another hour before Andrew and his men 
reached the Swallotv. It seems they had not noticed our 
famous signal, but had seen the new-comer. It was decided 
that Andrew should go off again with a fresh crew to the 
stranger ship, and should either get a pilot to take the 
Sioallow in or push on up the river to Boelongan and get 
aid from the Dutch cotifroleur, to whom we had introductions. 
At four o"'clock I said a tearful farewell .^-^\^\ 
for the second time. A little breeze 
had sprung up, and, riding at anchor in 
an unsheltered spot, the Sivallow was 
tossing backwards and forwards in the 
most uncomfortable way. My farewells 
to Andrew were, therefore, mixed up 
with an agonised appeal to Ah Ting to 
bring me a bucket. But Ah Ting was 
himself incapable at that moment ; and 
as I braced myself tightly against the 
taffrail, and endeavoured to pull myself 
together sufficiently to wave my hand to my departing 
husband, I became aware of my " boy " in an attitude of 
complete abandoament over the side of the lower deck just 
beneath. Later on he clambered up the steps and did his 
best for me, but he now developed a pessimistic view of 
things which made him suggest appalling possibilities. 
"Master go 'way long time?" he asked. I replied with 
warmth : " No, Ah Ting, master go Vay velly little time ; 
back chop-chop I '' Ah Ting intimated that he had nothing 
for master's dinner ; but I replied that master would 
doubtless bring bread and that the last tin of soup must be 
divided into two portions. 

The brilliant sunshine faded into an angry sunset, and the 
light grew dim. Far away I could see the little boat tossing 




56 TA¥0 ON THEIK TKAVELS 

up and down, and discern Andrew's white hat. At last, 
through strong glasses, I saw him reach the distant ship, and 
the white speck vanished over the side. Then darkness came 
down and it began to rain heavily. 

The Szcallozo was a dear Jittle boat, but in wet A\eather she 
had drawbacks. The lower deck, on which were the little 
eating and sleeping saloons, the bathroom and the quarters 
for the crew, had a very narrow deck on either side. When 
it rained doors and windows had to be shut. If the boat 
heeled over or a big wave came the water usually Avashed 
over this deck and into the cabins, so that it was advisable 
to leave nothing on the floor. The upper deck was protected 
by an awning and tarpaulin was lashed round the sides ; 
but somehow or other the rain washed in and swished about 
on the deck. There wasn't, on this occasion, a dry spot 
anywhere ; but still, retreat to the shut-up cabin was im- 
possible. I got into a long mackintosh-coat, and with a rug- 
round my feet and an umbrella over my head I extended 
myself in a long chair which was lashed to the mast, for by 
this time the Szoallozv was dancing merrily about on the 
waves. 

I don't think I should have minded if it had not been for 
Andrew, but as hour after hour went by and he did not 
re-appear, I suffered agonies of apprehension. In the first 
place, I pictured him returning in the open boat in his white 
linen coat and getting soaked. I kneio that would make him 
ill. Then as it became apparent that he was not returning, 
I had to divide my anxiety equally between two dangers : 
either he had started back and been swamped or he had gone 
up the river. In the latter case I pictured him, with his 
small crew, falling in perhaps with some pirates or other 
evil-doers. Perhaps he might even have to halt and spend 
the night in the wretched huts of some sea-Dyaks. I could 



FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 57 

see him slumbering peacefully — he ^\•ould slumber anywhere ! 
— on a bit of dirty matting, while a treacherous Dyak stole 
behind and — oh, horrid thought ! — cut off his beautiful head 
to add to the collection already drying among the rafters, 
I remembered all the unkind things I had ever said to him, 
and reflected tearfully on the fact that I had not one black dress 
in my trunk. All the time I could see the masthead light 
of the stranger ship, a speck of yellow through the darkness 
and rain. Ah Ting came on deck. " Master stay 'way long 
time?" (I verily believe Ah Ting thought Andrew had 
deserted me ! ) I told him sternly that I expected Master 
every minute, and that the dinner, such as it was, must be 
kept hot. About nine o'clock, however, I felt that Andrew 
could not be coming back, and accordingly I managed to 
consume a little of the soup. Ah Ting now varied the form 
of interrogation. "Missisee stay this side long time?*' "No, 
Ah Ting, certainly not; missisee go away with master chop- 
chop ! " Ah Ting ruminated. " No can catch ee any bleakfast," 
he remarked gloomily. 

The engineer and I, being the only two English-speaking 
people on the boat, now felt drawn together. He usually 
kept to his own quarters on the lower deck, but not liking to 
desert me, I suppose, he came up and sat at a respectful 
distance. As I Avas in, comparatively speaking, a dry spot 
while he was out in the rain, and as another long chair was 
moored alongside mine, I could not see why he should not 
occupy it, but I suppose his sense of decorum forbade. The 
situation had an element of the ludicrous. We were two 
lonely white people afloat on an unknown sea. It was wet, 
cold and rough. We were cold and hungry and miserable, 
and yet we had to converse as it Avere across a social barrier — 
I at one end of the deck and he at the other. At last I 
couldn't stand it any longer, so I peremptorily ordered him 



58 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

to occupy the long chair. As soon as he had slipped into 
it we became more sociable and talked about his wife, and 
how Singapore was not a nice place for a lady by herself, and 
many other personal topics. It transpired that his wife had 
recently come from England first-class on a P. and O., while 
we had made the journey by the cheap Japanese line ! Any- 
thing was better than lying still wondering what had become 
of Andrew. We made up our minds that if he had gone on 
up the river it might be a couple of days before he returned — 
a nice prospect ! 

I certainly counted the watches during that longest of 
nights, and I shall never forget the joy with which I hailed 
the faint, grey glimmer in the sky which presaged the dawn. 
It was still raining, and even broad daylight disclosed nothing 
save a few yards of rain-lashed sea around the yacht. The 
light of the stranger ship had disappeared about two in the 
morning, and I felt sensibly lonelier for the fact. 

Having spent about fifteen hours in my long chair I began 
to feel a little cramped, and I reflected that, supposing 
Andrew were to be away two days, I couldn't possibly spend 
all that time without moving or eating. I therefore descended 
and demanded of Ah Ting what food was to be had. Ah 
Ting said he had nothing but " two piecee egg," and with 
the prudence of a shipwrecked mariner I ordered '* one piecee 
egg " to be boiled for my breakfast. It is wonderful how- 
one's spirits rise when daylight puts an end to the mysterious, 
terrifying darkness of night. I tidied up my hair, which 
was lank and damp as sea-weed, washed my face and hands, 
and even ferreted out a novel, with the determination to 
employ myself to make the time pass. Just then Ah Ting 
came along wagging his old head mournfully. " Engineer 
velly sick — fever ! " he said. My heart stood still. Alone 
on this tiny yacht with none but Malays and one idiot 



FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 59 

Chinaman, and my one prop and companion down with the 
fever ! I went hastily along to his cabin, and found the old 
Malay captain and crew standing outside with a solemn air. 
I pushed my way in and saw the unfortunate engineer ex- 
tended on his berth. He Avas dressed save for his coat and 
shoes, and had evidently flung himself down in exhaustion. 
I remembered to have missed him from the other deck about 
three hours before. My entrance evidently disturbed him. 
He sat up — very briskly for an ill man — and looked at me 
with not unnatural surprise. " I am so sorry you are ill," I 
began. " 111 — who says Fm ill ? " he replied, ramming on his 
jacket. 

" Ah Ting said so," said I, beating a hasty retreat. " The 
old liar ! " wrathfully ejaculated the engineer, " Fm per- 
fectly well ; I merely came down to have a sleep. I'll give 
that old boy Ah Ting beans when I catch him." 

Ah Ting had evidently overheard this conversation, for he 
was in full flight down the deck when I appeared. Soon 
after, he brought me my " one piecee egg " with an air of 
injured innocence, and declared that Rahman, the Malay 
captain, had told him " master engineer velly sick." Ah 
Ting, for many reasons, never attempted the engineer's 
name, which was " McGuthrie." 

As I was tiying to reconcile the flavours of boiled egg and 
sweet biscuit, and blend them into a harmonious whole, I 
heard a shout. Ah Ting waddled into the cabin with more 
expression on his face than I had thought it capable of 
showing. " Big ship come ! " he cried. I rushed out at once, 
colliding with the engineer, who was just coming to bring me 
the same joyful news. 

Sure enough, through the blinding rain we could see the 
outlines of a vessel moving slowly towards us. Half a dozen 
times we thought we could distinguish Andrew through the 



60 TU O ON THEIll TRAVELS 

glasses, but at last the ship anchored within about a couple 
of hundred yards, and my long-lost one was plainly visible 
standing on the upper deck, neatly and tastefully attired (as 
the saying is) in a long oilcloth coat (borrowed of course), 
with a solah topee on his head and a white, green-lined 
umbrella in one hand, while Avith the other he waved an 
exceedingly dirty pocket handkerchief. 

A boat was put off, and very soon I was clasped in an 
oilskin embrace, while a pair of very wet moustaches scrubbed 
my cheeks. Andrew explained that on his arrival on board 
the Sarie Brunei^ as our rescuer was named, he had been 
able to arrange with the captain to give us a passage, but 
that owing to the darkness, rain, and roughness of the 
weather, the captain had persuaded him to stay on board 
and not attempt to return to the yacht. There were dan- 
gerous breakers to be crossed ; and above all the lights of the 
Szvallozo were not strong enough to be seen through the 
rain. As the men had already done some stiff work, and as 
the actual distance was quite five miles, Andrew felt it would 
be foolhardy to make the attempt ; but he pictured to me his 
anguish at leaving me in such a situation, and I think he 
must have felt considerable anxiety as to finding the 
Swalloxc where he had left her, since we were anchored 
without any shelter, and had a breeze begun to blow we should 
have been compelled to run before it to the nearest haven. 

As I was a good deal exhausted, Andrew and Ah Ting did 
all the necessary packing. Some weeks after, being unable to 
find a pair of boot trees, remembered this and made 
inquiries. Andrew confessed that having overlooked them 
he was obliged to " stick them somewhere." Ah Ting took 
one and planted it on the top of my one and only hat in my 
sacred hat-box ; Andrew merely shoved the other into the 
soiled-linen bao- ! 



FLIGHT OF THE SWALLOW 61 

The rain continued unceasinolv, and it was with a very 
draggled, woe-begone appearance that I clambered over the 
side of the Sarie Bninei. Andrew, for all his anxiety, had 
slept dry and quiet after a comfortable meal, and he pictured 
in glowing colours both food and cooking. I was not sorry 
to contemplate a change in diet from sweet biscuits and 
boiled eggs. Before I describe our new quarters I must say 
good-bye to the dear little Sxcalloio and her kind engineer. 
Supplied with some food he felt quite sure of finding his way 
safely across to Celebes, and once on that side of the sea 
Rahman knew every inch of the coast. As we stood on the 
top-deck of the big merchant vessel and watched the Sivalloxo 
ducking and flopping about with every swelling wave, I heard 
a quiet little voice at my elbow : " I vould not like to be on 
that leetle cork myself."" It was Captain Flack, skipper of 
the Sarie Brunei and our host. " Good-bye,"" sang out 
McGuthrie ; " three cheers, men — hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!"'"' 



CHAPTER VI 

OF THE SARIE BRUNEI AND SEA DOGS 

Xew quarters — A mixed crew — Of accents — A Scots engineer 
— Flotsam and jetsam — A popular delusion — A jovial Dutch- 
xi-ian — " Now Jacob was a hairy man " — A dissertation on fruit 
The cult of the mango — Carrion on custard — Wanted, a good 
conscience 

HE Sarie Brunei was a fair-sized trading-ship 
plying between Singapore and the south and 
east coasts of Borneo. We afterwards learnt 
that, had we not met her, we should have 
been obliged to wait ten days or a fortnight 
at Boelongan before any other kind of vessel 
would have been available to take us on our way. As a 
matter of fact, however, we should probably have been 
unable to find the correct entrance to the river since we 
possessed no clue and did not understand the buoys placed 
by the Dutch. With the very incomplete information 
we possessed it had been an act of folly to attempt to 
"make" Boelongan, but we had trusted to our "pilot." 
I must, in justice to that individual, add that, some time 
after, we obtained information that the creek into which 
he had first taken us actually led by a narrow passage to 
Boelongan, and aves used by the natives in their prahus. 




OF THE SARIE BRUNEI 63 

Through this passage he had doubtless made the journey 
before. 

I have said that the Sarie Brunei was a fair-sized vessel, 
but her accommodation for passengers was, of course, limited. 
The captain gave us his comfortable cabin, and there were 
two others occupied by the officers on the same deck. The 
lower deck always seemed to me to be simply swarming 
with Chinese and Malays, sailors, coolies, and deck passengers, 
and these, as the ship filled up, gradually invaded the second 
deck until they were everywhere except just alongside our 
cabins, which were protected by a rope. We lived chiefly, 
however, on the upper deck, which was of fair size and 
protected by an awning. This awning had been recently 
added by the captain, and as he was a very little man, about 
five feet high, the awning had been made to match. Con- 
sequently Andrew could never stand upright under it, and 
suffered frequent concussions which led to a great deal of 
unparliamentary language. All our meals were served on 
this deck, and exceedingly pleasant hours we spent under the 
much-abused awning. 

The nationality of the Sarie Brunei was a most puzzling- 
question. She was built at Glasgow, sailed from Singapore^ 
carried the Dutch flag, was Chinese-owned, had a Danish 
captain (who was a British subject), a Dutch mate, a Scots 
engineer, a Chinese super-cargo and a crew of Malays, The 
English language was spoken on board, of course; but I leave 
you to imagine the variety of accent. The Scottish element 
predominated, for at Banjermassin we were joined by the 
skipper of another boat, who was escorting his wife and 
family to Singapore. These people hailed from Glasgow, 
and despite the fact that the three children had never set 
foot in their native land, they had a burr that set one's teeth 
on edge. The engineer was a Highlander, and received us 



<34 TWO ON THEIll TllAVELS 

with effusion. He was, I regret to say, a good deal on the 
wrong side of teetotaHsni, and as he had a natural impediment 
in his speech, his conversation was at times wildlv difficult 
to piece together. " Ye're Hielanderrs," Avas his greeting. 
" F-f-f-er-ry p-p-p-roud to mak" ye'r acquaintance. We'''' 
(with a magnificent reference to the particular clan of "Macs" 
to which he belonged) " ar-r-e likewise frae the Isles, but we 
also c-c-c-claim the C-c-c-lyde ' " This was one of his sober 
days. On others, wdiich I regret to say were the more 
frequent, he would be desirous of entering into political and 
literary controversy, hut ludicrous as the spectacle was, the 
pity of it was stronger. This was a man full of the Celtic 
poetry and imagination. His cabin was cstaked with books — 
many new ones just obtained at Singapore, and the choice of 
his library proved a culture far beyond that of an ordinary 
working engineer on a trading-ship. I remember that, among 
others, he lent me "The Choir Invisible,"" and niv recollections 
of that tender and charming book are inextricably mingled 
with the picture of the tall, thin Scotchman, with his hand- 
some, dissipated face and soft Highland speech, stretched 
sometimes for days together in his berth half sodden with 
^Irink, but still finding pleasure in the dumb companionship 
of his books. There was a wife, too, a pleasant-faced girl 
from her photograph, and an " auld mither '' in a far-away 
Highland glen. One day, when passing through scener}' of 
wild tropical beauty, I spoke of it to him, but he said he 
loathed it. " Fd give all the tropics in the ^^ orld for a glint 
of grey moor or a whiff of heather,'" he said. 

I have lingered long; over this w^-eck. this flotsam and 
jetsam of life, which is too common a type in Eastern waters. 
I fear his recollections of us must have been a little bitter, 
since shortly after we took up our abode on the Saric Bnaici, 
the captain, scandalised at his appearance one day when he 



OF THE SARIE BRUNEI 



65 



had been drinking, gave him a hint to keep out of our way, 
and from that time we only saw him in the distance. 

I think the popular type of rolHcking dog described as 
"sea-captain'" must have been drawn largely from imagination. 
I have met rollicking middies and even lieutenants, while I 
have made the ac- 
quaintance of one or 
two frisky admirals. 
In the Merchant Ser- 
vice I have known 
cheerful mates and 
officers, but captains 
in the Royal Navy 
have always seemed 
to me serious, polite, 
and thoughtful peo- 
ple, while the com- 
manders of passenger 
boats are for ever 
anxious and heavy- 
fatherly with the cha- 
peronage of young ladies. As for the skippers of trading- 
ships, among whom I made an extensive acquaintance during 
our unconventional journeys, they are as a class silent, 
depressed (if not morose), pessimistic, and mournful, with 
wistful eyes and quiet manners. Captain Flack, although 
sprung from a race of Norse sea-dogs, was the mildest, 
saddest little man imaginable. He hated the sea, which had 
been his home for thirty years — this is another disillusion 
after one''s preconceived ideas about " the old tar sniffing the 
briny" — hated ships, hated the sailor's life. Oft in the stillv 
night, when by all the canons of art he ought to have been 
roaring out " Black Eyed Susan" in a deep bass voice, he would 

E 




66 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 




bring out a thin-toned violin and play mouinful little tunes. 
I knew another captain who performed in a similar heart- 
rending way on the clarionet. For hours the little captain 
would sit moodily staring out to sea. His one amusement, 
barring the violin, was to play bezique (with a very dirty 
pack) with the jovial Dutch mate. 

I am quite glad to be able to record 
that the Dutch mate was jovial, but I 
suspect that a great deal of his exu- 
berance of spirit was due to the fact 
that this was the first voyage he had 
made on the Sarie Brunei, and that he 
had made a considerable rise in his 
profession in shipping as first officer. 

The first time I beheld him I thought 
I had never before seen so hirsute an 
, „ , . , " obiect. He was a shortish, square- 
— built man, with black hair and mous- 
tache and a chin that was of a strong indigo blue when I 
first beheld it. I watched the deepening of that tint and 
the evolution of a bristly black beard up to the point when, 
just before our arrival in Singapore, the mate turned up 
clean-shaven, and I hardly knew him again. My first view 
of him was after I had tidied myself in my cabin, when 
Andrew assisted me to the upper deck and deposited me in a 
long chair. It was still raining, but I was blissfully enjoying 
that most perfect feeling of repose which comes when, after 
tossing about for days, one at length lands on something 
firm and steady. The mate was keeping his M^atch and was 
doing a sentry-go up and down the fore part of the deck. 
He was clad, as it was raining, in the remains of a blue serge 
suit. I say advisedly the "remains'" because it had lost 
certain integral parts, such as the knees and the elbows. 



OF THE SARIE BRUNEI 67 

These had been patched, but the garment had shrunk, and 
enclosed the burly form of the Dutchman with the greatest 
reluctance. The breast was open and revealed no shirt, but 
an enormous hairy chest with blue tattooing marks; the 
sleeves having retreated made similar disclosures as to a pair 
of brawny arms covered with a small forest, and, unladylike 
though it be to mention such a thing, the rolled-up and 
ragged trousers revealed the very hairiest legs I ever hope to 
see off an orang-outang. The mate wore no shoes, but 
betrayed not the slightest consciousness of any deficiency in 
his costume at first, greeting me with a cheery guffaw (he 
always guffawed on the slightest provocation) and continuing- 
his tramp. The captain shortly after came on deck — he was 
always neatly attired in white duck — and perhaps something 
in his eye attracted the mate's attention, for he presently 
fled, and returned wearing a mackintosh and a pair of carpet 
slippers in addition to the blue serge remains. 

Never in all my journeyings have I met better fare on 
board ship than that provided on the Sarie Brunei. The 
service, too, was excellent. Two smart Chinese boys waited 
on us, and I may mention that one, who was always neatly 
dressed in white, had the thickest, blackest, and longest 
pigtail I ever beheld. Most Chinamen's pigtails are frauds. 
The smallest wisp of hair is gathered together and lengthened 
with long black cords to a respectable queue, while a red, or 
if in mourning, a white, cord is twisted in near the bottom. 
A well-dressed tail reaches almost to the ground, but of this 
only about a foot is genuine. Ah-Fong's tail, however,^ 
reached naturally to below his waist, and the thick, glossy 
black hair, tightly gathered together, looked hke an ebony 
skull-cap on the back of his head. 

Not only was the food excellent but it was well cooked, 
and we had a wonderful variety. Fruit there was in abun- 



68 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

(lance, and, in particular, great clumps of bananas were strung 
up to the awning on the upper deck, and we just plucked 
and ate these as they ripened. I have never been able to 
•enjoy bananas since, but even that deprivation does not 
outweigh the privilege of knowing what a banana can be. 
People at home who are accustomed to the yellow, soapy 
fruit one buys in London, for instance, cannot imagine the 
flavour of such bananas as those we ate on the Sarie Brunei. 
There are many varieties. A short, thick fruit with a white, 
woollv flesh and delicate flavour ; another extremely long 
and large, and of a rich yellow colour inside. But the best 
of all is a medium-sized deep golden fruit which comes from 
Celebes. The flesh is streaked with juicy veins and the 
flavour has at times a reminiscence of strawberries and at 
others of pines. It melts in the mouth ! 

On the Sarie Brunei I first made a pig of myself over 
mangoes. I had consumed plenty of mangosteins — by some 
considered the best of all Eastern fruits — in Java, but I 
certainly prefer mangoes. Mangosteins are the prettiest fruit 
in the world. They have a thick prickly green shell, which 
ripens to purple, and this must be broken open ; then the 
flesh of the fruit is seen, the size of a small egg, of a 
beautiful snow-white, lying in a rich red shell. It has a 
most refreshing taste, something like raspberries and cream 
with a dash of lemon squash, and is of the consistency of 
whipped cream. The red lining of the kernel, however, if 
allowed to bleed, has not only a most disagreeable bitter 
taste but makes an indelible stain. The mango is a stone- 
fruit, and varies in size, a medium one being about the same 
bulk as a large pear. Mangoes are oval in shape, flattened 
at the sides, have a smooth thick skin, and ripen from pale 
green to golden. The flesh is like that of a peach, or rather 
of an apricot, and is the same hue as the latter. A ripe 



OF THE SARIE BRUNEI 6(> 

mango is so juicy that to eat it politely is almost impossible^ 
and besides, to touch it with a knife is fatal. The skin 
must be peeled away from all but the extreme end, by which 
the fruit is held, and then the flesh must be torn with the 
teeth from the large flat stone in the centre of the fruit. 
Juice trickles down the chin, and stains the lips, but no 
matter! The true mango-lover is absorbed by the subtle 
delicious flavour and thinks of nothing else. After several 
attempts at describing the flavour, I wrote in my diary that 
it was like apricots, strawberries, bananas, ripe pears, and 
lemon-juice all mashed together to a delightful, crisp,, 
succulent consistency. There are people who say that all 
these fruits are as nothing beside the durian, prized especially 
of Chinamen to such an extent that they will give fabulous- 
sums to obtain the earliest specimens. The durian is called 
by the Dutch " stancker," and no more appropriate name 
could be desired. I can't describe it because I never got 
within shouting distance of it. The reason lies, as the Dutch 
name signifies, in the extraordinary aroma which exudes from 
it. I had never smelt anything like it in my whole life, but 
I am credibly informed that it is the odour of corpses — 
nothing else. "Carrion in custard" is the description given 
by one traveller, but I may add that even European ladies 
conquer their aversion when they have tasted this wonderful 
fruit and become a worshipper at its shrine. As an example 
of the strength and persistency of the odour, I may say that 
a friend of ours on one occasion, being fourteen miles from 
home, ate a durian^ bicycled home, had a bath and changed 
his clothes, and then entered his wife's drawing-room. Almost 
before he had crossed the threshold she called out : "Oh, go 
away ; youVe been eating diirian ! " 

But to return to the Sarie Brunei. There was one peculi- 
arity of her arrangements which made a long sojourn rather 



70 TWO OX THEIR TRAVELS 

trving. The dinner-hour was at 5.30, and after that came 
a long evening, faintly illuminated by an oil lamp, during 
which it was practically impossible to do anything but talk. 
The skipper and mate, good fellows both, were not exactly 
brilliant conversationalists, and the Scots engineer was 
seldom visible at so late an hour. For us it was merely a 
tiresome interlude, but those long, semi-dark evenings must 
have been trying ones for the men who knew nothing else for 
months together. I think seafaring men must need very 
aood consciences ! 



CHAPTER VII 

OF RIVEES AND TOWNS IN DUTCH BORNEO 

A Malay river — Samarinda — Eiver life — The leisurely Malay 
— Scenes from my diary — Pulo Laut — On the Barito — Banjer- 
massin— Hotel life— The ways of the Colonial Dutch— The 
pahit — ^A quaint army — The footsteps of a tragedy — We 
spend the night— Heat and mosquitoes — Social functions — A 
place to live out of — Brown babies — Boats and their owners 
— Back to the Sarie Brunei — The skipper's yarns — About 
Christmas Isle — The ways of Dutch officials — Ah Ting 
retreats 

FTER sailing down the coast that day and next 
we entered the Kotei River about four o'clock, and 
^^^ were boarded by no less than three pilots. Two 
9^\ were going back to headquarters, being pretty 
~^^^ tired with waiting ten days at the river's mouth 
for a ship. The captain said pilots were a great im- 
position, as all the "traders" on that coast know the 
river as well as possible. It is simply a Dutch method 
of taxing the shipping. The first part of the river in the 
delta is winding and narrow; on either side nothing but 
low-lying mangrove swamp or jungle. Here and there a 
little clearing and a few huts show the presence of natives. 
When the many streams of the delta unite, however, the 
Kotei is a noble river, broad and deep, navigable for between 



72 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

four and five hundred miles. This is the greatest river of 
Borneo. 

The banks began to show faint undulations, the vegetation 
grew less coarse, and at length we were steaming between 
wooded slopes, the distant horizon showing a faint line of low 
hills. The scene in the moonlight was sufficiently beautiful — 
the wide smooth expanse of water, the dark hne of banks, the 
occasional twinkle of light from native boat or hut, and 
hardly a sound unless a floating log or palm tree bumped 
against the ship or was knocked aside with a splash. We 
passed the harbour-master's place in what looked like a village 
of brown huts, and the captain had to go on shore and 
personally make his bow to that official, which seemed a 
rather useless bit of red-tapism. This was just at the end 
of the delta, and here we dropped the pilots. After one and 
a half hour's more steaming up river we at length came round 
a bend and saw the twinkling lights of Samarinda. This 
place lies on either side of a river about twice as broad as 
the Thames at Kew. On the left bank is a Chinese town — ■ 
one long street of squalid houses and shops — and a few better 
houses and bungalows belonging to wealthy Chinese and to 
Europeans. There are said to be some thirty Europeans 
altogether, engaged in various trading enterprises or in the 
employ of the Dutch Government. There is actually a 
carriage, or rather, a two-wheeled trap, drawn by a stout 
little pony. This we saw for ourselves. Parallel to the 
Chinese street runs a road along the edge of the river, which 
is studded with go-downs and wharves. Here we moved 
along from wharf to wharf, picking up a cargo of rattan, 
gutta, or sometimes of pepper. 

The street and wharves are full of Chinese, all hard at 
work in shops, carrying rattan, or hawking about edibles 
and drinkables. There are a fair number of Malays too, in 



DUTCH BORNEO 73 

their unspeakably dingy sarongs^ their little round plush 
caps, and loose white coats. They are, as a rule, strolling 
leisurely about or sitting in an attitude of contemplation 
watching the Chinese at work. There is also a sprinkling of 
natives, attired generally in light cotton trousers of startling 
hues. They are evidently also of the brotherhood who 
" cannot dig,"" though I am not so sure that they would not 
beg. To do them justice, however, the people of Borneo — 
Malays, Chinese, or natives — do not beg. We never were 
asked for alms during our whole stay, and only saw one 
beggar, who, deprived of his arm by an accident in a sawmill, 
is now a sort of licensed alms collector. This man, by the 
way, two days after his accident and subsequent treatment in 
hospital was met out walking ! 

The other side of this great river is fringed for perhaps 
a quarter of a mile with native huts, standing partly on piles 
over the water. Native boats ply backwards and forwards — 
little shallow^ cockle-shells, in which men and women crouch, 
paddling along in canoe-fashion. Some are longer and deeper, 
and have a mat awning down the centre, being laden perhaps 
with fruit and vegetables. There is a good proportion of 
thin, brown-skinned natives, garbed in fantastic cottons with 
great scrawling patterns. The Malay population are mostly 
Bugis, who have come over on trade intent from Celebes. 
They all seem good-natured and happy. The children play 
about the streets ; the little boys squat on the wharves, 
fishing or staring with their lazy contented stare at the lading 
of the ship; the native policemen stroll about casually, with 
their blue and red uniform put on anyhow and variegated 
turbans on their heads. 

Up the river lives the Sultan of Kotei, the monarch to 
whom the country formerly belonged. His flag flies side 
by side with the Dutch one in Samarinda, and his ships 



74 



TWO OX THEIR TRAVELS 



compromise by flving a double flag, with the bkie, white, and 
red on one side and the tiger of Kotei on his yellow back- 
ground on the other. The late Sultan had a great craving 
for the benefits of civilisation, and indulged himself in musical 




Y(tt«Lye 



boxes, steam-launches, jewellery, electric light, and so forth, 
without, if rumour sa}s true, being particularly anxious to 
pay for them. A small launch runs from Samarinda to the 
Sultan's place every day ; but as it is very crowded and hot, 
and the journey takes five hours there and five back, we did 
not go. 

Before the advent of the Dutch there were a number of 
Arab traders at Samarinda who did a brisk business in jungle 



DUTCH BORNEO 



75 



produce. At present, except for growing pepper, there is 
little done there, and the place has a stagnant appearance. 
There is, however, a steam sawmill, and a good deal of 
timber is available. The Hotel Wilhelmina stands in an 
enclosure in which some attempt has been made to cultivate 
flowers. A fine crop of ornamental flower-pots and a few 




dusty hibiscus are the result. The hotel has received a coat 
of white paint, and the verandah is decorated with some 
pictures as well as the inevitable long chairs. The nicest 
bungalows are at the other end of the town, where the street 
becomes a palm-shaded road and leads uphill to a cool and 
thickly wooded hill. 

We lay off" Samarinda all day and watched the river-life 
with interest. It constantly reminded Andrew of Burmah, 
The little boats skimming along, the brown legs and arms 
and coloured turbans, the occasional family party going for 
an evening row, the fruit boat, or perhaps three urchins in a 
primitive craft paddling about — all made up a lively picture. 
The night was cool, the morning rather misty at first. We 



76 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

started about six o'clock, and as the sun got strong the mist 
rolled away and the great bosom of the river lay unruffled, 
like a polished glass reflecting the soft green of the tree- 
covered banks and the tender fleecy clouds of early morning. 

Once out of the river we steamed down the coast, and 
during the day passed Pulo Laut, which is a large island, 
50 miles long by 20 broad, lying on the south-east coast, so 
that ships pass between it and the mainland. We anchored 
for the night at a small place facing this island, where we 
took in a number of native passengers. It is a Malay village, 
standing on piles over the Avater, and extending for some 
distance along the water's edge. At the back rise gentle 
grassy slopes, only partially wooded — a rarity in these parts, 
and behind aa'ain a considerable hill covered Avith the usual 
forest. The village has a certain amount of trade, and is the 
seat of a Dutch Resident, but there did not seem to be many 
European bungalows, and these were down on the shore. 
The Dutch seem to prefer this, and do not perch their dwell- 
ings on the nearest hill, as is the custom of the British 
in tropical countries. A tremendous quantity of bananas 
must be grown here, to judge from the boat-loads that hung 
about the ship. Large boats wdth mat roofs and with wicker 
cages full of fowls at each end came alongside, and from one 
of these I saw a fowl fall into the water, when curiously 
enough, instead of sinking, she balanced herself, and with 
much clucking managed to paddle to a piece of stick, where 
she obtained a foothold and was eventually rescued. 

The scenery along this island was extremely pretty, pre- 
senting more variety than usual, as frequently the hills were 
green and smooth, instead of being covered with the mono- 
tonous jungle. Long stretches of white sand were fringed in 
])laces with cocoanut palms, behind these rose the emerald 
slopes, and beyond the grey-green of a w^ooded hill. We 



DUTCH BORNEO 77 

were reminded, in one place at all events, of Ceylon. There 
are native villages here and there, but no Dutch settlements. 
After a day or two"'s pleasant, peaceful voyage we again 
entered a river, this being known as the Barito, and 
leading to the town of Banjermassin. It is not so broad 
and imposing as that of Kotei, and all along its low, swampy 
banks, as one steams up towards the town from which it takes 
its name, are numberless huts, forming an almost continuous 
village as it were on either side of the river. Little glimpses 
of life in these tumble-down huts make an interesting sight. 
Brown babies swarm everywhere. Tiny boats are moored all 
along the banks, and shoot out here and there, propelled 
perhaps by a naked youngster, whose great desire is to feel 
the rocking caused by the wash from the ship. The tide 
when full floods the land underneath the huts, and when it 
ebbs leaves pools and swamps horribly suggestive of fever 
and mosquitoes. As one nears Banjer itself, the huts grow 
larger and are glorifled almost into bungalows ; landing- 
stages run out into the river and graceful boats are moored 
beside them, but the first sight of the town shows little but 
a large wharf, crowded with natives in every shade of cotton 
clothing. Numbers of boats are plying backwards and 
forwards, from the primitive "dug-out" to the beautifully 
built sampan of some wealthy Chinese, with its curved prow 
and stern and gaudily decorated awning. Large coal-rafts 
are moored along one side of the river, the coal being par- 
tially immersed. It is curious to see it being dug up and 
loaded into smaller boats, from whence it is passed along to 
the ship's side. There is a perfect colony living in boats and 
rafts on this river. We watch as we pass the preparation of 
a meal by one of the women at one end of a ramshackle boat. 
From under the bamboo hangings which make the house o 
this family, a younger woman crawls, and stooping over the 



78 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



side washes her garments in the river. At the other end lies 
a man asleep, in a flat uncomfortable attitude, with no pillow. 
Half a dozen children swarm about the boat, destitute of 




vrKlTip^ 



clothing, but well provided with bracelets, necklaces, anklets 
and charms. 

Banjermassin consists of an extensive river frontage of 
wharves, fish and fruit markets, a number of rough untidy 
Chinese streets just behind this, and a long, straight, beautiful 
avenue, known as the Boomplatz, which leads one under 
pleasant foliage to the club house, and from there deviates to 
a river path, and finally becomes merely the approach to 
native huts. The Boomplatz has a canal on either side. 
That on the left as one goes towards the club is crossed by 



DUTCH BORA^EO 



79 



a number of little white bridges which lead to tidy little 
bungalows.. Graceful pahns make a shade for these, and are 
reflected in the canals. On the other side are the schools, 
barracks, the Banjer hotel, and various other buildings, but 







the whole effect is of a quiet shady country road, agreeably 
broken by the line of water on either hand, and by the 
quaint little bridges. Along this road, in the early morning, 
the young hopefuls of Banjermassin are going to school. 
They come towards us in httle groups, sedate and prim, hand 
in hand with slates and books. All are neatly dressed in 
white or light-coloured cotton frocks and suits. Their hair 
is smoothly brushed, their faces and hands well washed. 



80 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



Alas, for the disillusion as we get nearer ! These are no 
buxom bonnie Dutch children, with blue eyes and flaxen hair. 
They are solemn, dark-eyed, thin-legged, little people, and 
they vary in colour from cocoanut brown to light yellow. 
Their mamas come out to go to market, or for a morning 

stroll, and it must 
be confessed that nei- 
ther near at hand nor 
far off is there much 
risk of illusion about 
them. The universal 
dress is the sarong 
and ¥ibaya ; the ugly 
checked or patterned 
skirt fastened tightly 
round the legs pro- 
duces a shuffling walk 
(the feet are bare, 
and thrust into slip- 
— ^ pers Avith embroi- 

dered toes but no heel); the shapeless white jacket, with its 
tight sleeves and straight back, no matter how fine the 
material or embroidery may be, is inevitably unbecoming to 
the most graceful figure, and when worn by a stout and 
podgy woman, with immense double chin and black hair 
scraped into a bun behind, the effect is indescribably ungainly. 
Just as in Java the ladies, who were evidently Dutch from 
their fair complexions and hair, did not seem to mind walk- 
ing; about in this costume. It is hard to understand how a 
woman can lose so completely not only her sense of what 
shows her to advantage, but all desire to be original in her 
costume. 

The club is a spacious and comfortable-looking place, but 




DUTCH BORNEO 81 

the most important part of it, to judge from what we saw, 
is the garden in front, where under the shade of the trees a 
large round table stands. Around this, at certain hours of 
the day — before " rice table '"■ and before dinner (about 8.30) 
— a large group of men will always be found consuming' 
" pahits." It is not actually known how many of these re- 
freshers a Dutchman can consume before each meal, but a 
well-authenticated story relates that a small English boy, 
who had been left alone with a Dutch friend while his father 
went out of the room, greeted that parent on his return with 
the remark : " By Jove ! papa — seventeen ! " 

Banjer is the largest place in Dutch Borneo, and appa- 
rently the only one in which any attempt has been made to 
render the place habitable for Europeans — and with what 
result ? 

The best hotel, though not bad from the standpoint of 
Borneo, is miles below any decent European hotel. The 
beds and linen are clean, the cooking fair, but the sanitary 
arrangements are of the most primitive ; the building is 
entirely of wood — indeed there are no stone houses in Dutch 
Borneo — and gets extremely hot. The floors are bare, or 
covered with dusty matting : the walls have received a rough 
wash of bluey-white, and are discoloured with damp. The 
first room into which we were shown had a back window 
which opened on to a swamp, and was overlooked by a group 
of native huts. I chose another, without a swamp, but abso- 
lutely closed in by the hotel dining-room in front and some 
other building behind. At dinner we discovered that neither 
ice nor soda-water was to be had. There had been an ice 
company in Banjer, but it had come to grief. As we sat at 
dinner I watched an enormous rat scuttle backwards and 
forwards on a piece of wainscot. No breath of air stirred 
the palm trees or waved the ferns that grew in ornamental 

F 



82 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

pot§ in the quadrangle of the hotel. It was absolutely still 
a,nd breathless, and the mosquitoes just sat on us and fed ! 
A moonlight walk, however, showed us scenes of exquisite 
and fairy-like beauty. The broad river shone like silver, and 
little dark boats shot backwards and forwards. In the 
Boomplatz the trees made a delicate tracery across the road, 
and the water on either side ran darkly or caught here and 
there a streak of light. The pale trunks of palms rose like 
spectres, and their still paler reflections quivered in the 
water. 

As soon as dinner was sufficiently digested and our walk 
■over, we went back to our mosquito-infested room, and got 
inside a sort of tent, made of thick opaque muslin. I don't 
know whether the Banjer mosquitoes are too fierce to be 
kept out by ordinary netting or not; anyway, this thick 
stuff' is used in the hotel. We were so tired that despite 
everything we slept well, and woke about 6 o'clock to find a 
cool morning. I believe the nights are not, as a rule, hot ; 
•about 9 A.M., however, by which time we had walked down 
to the wharf and back, the heat became intense, and we knew 
from experience that this must continue during the whole 
day, and that not till the sun was down should we feel any 
relief, if then ! 

There is another hotel in Banjer, presided over by a lady 
"who rejoices in the sobriquet of " Mutter ; "" and she appa- 
rently lives up to this by introducing the most parental 
legislation into her dealings with her guests. She decides 
exactly what they must eat and drink, and doles the meals 
out with the utmost precision and a good deal of stinginess. 
She settles at what hour they must rise, go to bed, &c. &c., 
iiud in short she rules with a rod of iron. We met one of 
her quondam guests (a Frenchman), who complained that 
under her regime he had nearly starved. 



DUTCH BORNEO 83 

For amusement one must put up with very little. There 
is no chance of riding — horses are almost unknown, and the 
few traps and pseudo-carriages are drawn by tiny ponies. 
Besides, there is nowhere to ride or drive to. Many of the 
Dutch officials, as well as the Chinese, ride bicycles, probably 
as an easy means of getting to and from work. A military 
band plays certain evenings in the week, and the elite can sit 
round and listen or stroll up and down the Boomplatz. I 
saw a programme of festivities for the celebration of Queen 
Wilhelmina's marriage. It looked wildly dissipated, and 
spread over three whole days. It began, if I remember 
rightly, with a military review, and ended with sports for the 
natives. There was besides a reception and ball, given in 
the municipal buildings, or whatever corresponds to that in 
Dutch. The third day got rather " thin " in the way of 
entertainment, and the early morning was merely to be cele- 
brated by a serenade from the band, while the sports " came 
off" about 6. We regretted very much that we could not 
Avitness these festivities, especially the ball. 

There is something offensive and depressing in the arrange- 
ment of Banjer. The canals and swamps — where there is 
no swamp a cutting is made up to the house — round every 
dwelling, and the consciousness that these are the receptacles 
for the refuse of the household, makes one inclined to be 
ever sniffing for unpleasant smells. The river itself is fou 
and muddy, and constantly sullied with dead birds or animals. 
The natives, nevertheless, use it for washing their clothes 
bathing their bodies, and even for drinking purposes. In the 
hotel, I believe, they drink rain-water, but we did not try it ! 

Saline Spring is a very good name for Banjermassin. 
The delta is intersected by many channels, whose waters rise 
at high tide almost to the bank level, and as there are no 
levees, or embankments, a few inches additional rise suffices 



84 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

to inundate immense areas or districts. From the steamer 
deck the whole country often appears to be below the river 
level. 

One longs for a breezy hillside, and a whiff of pure air. 
We were told that fever is not more rife here than in other 
tropical places, but it is difficult to believe this. The European 
women whom we saw looked pale, the children as a rule were 
thin, but the majority of these were not pure European, 
which is probably the reason they can live at all. 

There are one or two large stores in the place, but the 
mere fact of there being no ice in a town of this size indicates 
a low standard of comfort. The natives we saw were all 
Malays, many probably Bugis from the Celebes. They seem 
to live almost side by side with the Europeans, their wretched 
huts clustering close to the bungalows and hotel. They 
looked to us very low in the scale of humanity as a rule, 
though on the wharf we saw a few better dressed and of 
more dignified aspect. There are, of course, a number of 
Chinese, and some seemed to be prosperous traders, and wore 
good European hats with their clean white clothes, and were 
rowed about in elegant sampans. What on earth the visitor 
to Banjermassin must do with himself during the best part 
of the day I cannot think ; it is, however, possible that no 
one ever comes to Banjer purely as a visitor. The con- 
sumption of pahits occupies successfully many hours of the 
day, but those who are not seasoned to it cannot fall back on 
this pastime. There may be a library at Bandjer — we never 
heard of one ; but even with the aid of books it must be 
monotonous to pass six or seven hours of every day in a long 
chair dodging the mosquitoes with one's book — et apres, 
when the " cool of the evening " arrives, what is there to do 
but to stroll and loiter round the club house and consume 
nore pahits? No attempt at providing out-door exercise 



DUTCH BORNEO 85 

and amusement, no possibility of comfort in the low-lying, 
closely-built-in bungalows — truly the dweller in Banjer, if 
he has ever known life in Europe, must revolt at his 
exile ! 

The specimens of the rank and file of the Dutch colonial 
army whom we encountered were curious. Some were white 
and thin, some white and fat, the majority were of all shades 
of brown, shading almost to black. All sorts and conditions 
are swept together, and form a body in comparison with 
which the Legion des Etrangers would be select, A 
countryman of our own achieved great popularity here not 
long ago as an officer. He was described to us as a 
gentleman and a charming companion, and he had had his 
training as an officer in the British army. His name was 
that of a proud old family, and as we heard the outlines of 
his story we felt as if we had chanced on the footsteps of a 
tragedy. A certain proportion of the officers are sent out 
from home at intervals, and have hitherto been given 
command over the heads of the Colonial officers without 
passing through the usual routine. This is, I believe, to be 
altered, as it naturally led to great discontent. It may be 
added that an ordinary sight all over the Dutch Indies is 
that of a soldier in uniform, with unbuttoned tunic, braces 
hanging down and no boots, taking a stroll accompanied by 
a brown wife and half a dozen buff"-coloured children. 

Altogether, Banjermassin, as the principal town of Dutch 
Borneo, seemed to us a great failure. Practically the capital 
of a country rich in oil, coal, diamonds, gold, timber, gutta, 
and many other valuables, it is not a paying concern. As a 
stronghold of an European nation in the Far East, it is un- 
worthy of its position. It lacks the refinements of civilisation, 
and is largely peopled with a hybrid race. The native is left 
in his pig-sty, and the European seems rather inclined to 



86 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



wallow himself than to " trail clouds of g'lory "" before the 
benighted Malay. 

There is a sleepy, decadent, stagnant, rotting air every- 
where. There is no appearance of artistic or social life. 




Ojjj- 



There is apparently little enterprise and no enthusiasm in the 
place. There is a beastly climate, and above all there is the 
eternal palut. 

I have already mentioned that at Banjermassin we were 
joined by a Scottish skipper and his family, and from the time 
of their arrival our little happy family — melancholy captain, 
jovial mate, drunken engineer, Andrew and self — was a good 
deal broken up. Captain Flack had an unconquerable pre- 
judice against the new-comers, and became more morose and 
pessimistic than evei", only brightening up when they were 
out of sight. The new skipper had a reputation, which I 



DUTCH BORNEO 87 

believe to be well founded, of being the biggest liar on the 
coast, and this, added to a soft manner and an all-embracing 
smile, made him particularly repugnant to sturdy, truthful 
little Captain Flack. I remember on one occasion he boasted 
to us of his servants. "I had one Chinese boy, sir," he 
remarked, " who stayed with me fourteen years— fourteen 
years, sir ; and I never had to speak sharply to him. At the 
end of that time he spilt some curry one day and I said, ' You 
clumsy dog ! ' He left at once, and took all my loose cash 
with him ! " 

Almost before the raconteur was out of sight, Captain 
Flack, who had been bursting with indignation during the 
whole story, broke in : " He is von liar ! He never not keep 
von servant fourteen year ! I know well he only come out 
here twelve — ten years ago, and he have different servant 
every time I see him ! " 

Captain Flack also objected to the children, particularly 
to the boy, and indeed they had been terribly spoilt by a too 
indulgent mother. Poor little things, accustomed to the free 
unrestraint of life in the East, with a patient Malay or 
Chinese servant to order about, and with absolute choice as 
to what they should eat or drink (they appeared to live 
chiefly on curries and chutney), they were shortly to be intro- 
duced to a very different phase of life. They were being sent 
home to a school in Aberdeen, of all cities in the world, 
because their father's only relatives lived there. They had 
the vaguest idea of the old country, and I tried to prepare 
them a little for their arrival in that cold grey city of the 
North in the bitter month of March. I often thought of 
them afterwards, and pictured them, fresh from the sun and 
flowers and green palms among which they had lived all their 
short lives, accustomed to the dusky faces, brilliant garments 
and easy ways of the natives, arriving in the big, bustling 



88 TA¥0 ON THEIR TRAVELS 

city of stone, with its hard-faced and sharp-tongued, albeit 
warm-hearted, denizens. I hope that Scottish discipHne was 
meted out gently to them at first, and that they were not 
made to tackle the Shorter Catechism on the very first 
Sunday. 

When in the mood our morose little captain could spin a 
very good yarn, and I remember one in particular which 
■especially took my fancy. It was of his landing on Christmas 
Isle — the first European to do so, as far as is known, since its 
existence was first discovered. He was then in the service of 
Mr. Ross of the Cocos Islands, and was instructed, if it fitted 
in with his voyages at any time, to land and report on the 
island. Accordingly he one day dropped anchor in the little 
harbour and proceeded to land. The myriads of fish that 
.swarmed in the bay all came round the ship to see w^hat new 
kind of fish it was. They even raised themselves half out of 
the water to take a look. The birds on shore also came 
flocking down and perched on the heads and arms of the 
intruders, for evidently it was the first time either birds or 
fishes had seen man, and they had no idea that he would hurt 
them. And yet there was one evidence that human beings 
had visited this island, for an inscription was carved on a 
tree. It had become so twisted and overgrown that only one 
letter (R) remained decipherable. Christmas Island was 
afterwards acquired by a syndicate and a plantation estab- 
lished there. 

Another of Captain Flack's stories related to the habits of 
Dutch Customs officials. On one occasion the captain had 
been presented by Mr. Ross with a fine pig, and desired on 
landing at Sourabaya to present various portions of it to 
friends in that place. The Customs officer, however, said 
*' Impossible ! No such thing can be brought ashore under 
Rule ," and here he quoted from the Dutch colonial 



DUTCH BORNEO 89 

tariff', which is a truly wonderful production. The captain 
ruminated for a minute and then said, " That's a pity. I had 
been thinking that you would like a taste of pork yourself — 
and I can only use three of the four quarters — however, if it 
is quite impossible . . .?'''' The Customs official Ucl-ed his 
lips, and the captain's friends were made happy with the 
remaining three quarters. 

With stories and chat, and a good deal of reading and 
sleeping, the time went by not disagreeably ; Andrew's one 
cross was the awning w^hich prevented him from walking the 
decks with comfort. It was no relief to him to feel that the 
awning gave him a perpetual excuse for lying in a long chair, 
for Andrew is one of those men who always speak the 
truth and despise easy chairs. Lolling is his abomination, 
and the sight of a modern youth in a drawing-room lying 
back against the cushions, with crossed legs sprawling out, is 
one that makes him perfectly ferocious. He is possessed 
with a strong desire to smother that youth in his own 
cushions. I recollect one occasion when we were having tea in 
the smoking-room of the Aladdin — where, by the way, one 
seldom sees ladies really enjoying a smoke, though sometimes 
they hold a cigarette awkwardly and take wild pulls at it 
every now and then. A young man was being entertained 
by a maiden. He sat well back in an easy-chair, his head 
resting on the padding, one knee across the other, and his 
irreproachable trousers pulled up to display striped silk socks 
above his patent boots. His hostess, a smart and pretty 
woman, sat on the edge of a high-backed chair. Tea was 
brought and she poured it out and handed it to him. He 
accepted it with lazy grace, and even went so far as to raise 
his head. All the while he was chaffing her in a gentle 
tolerant way. Oh, my dear young man, if you only knew 
how the sober young woman who sat with her back to you 



90 TA¥0 ON THEIll TRAVELS 

was taking stock with the eyes that every woman conceals in 
her back hair, and how she longed to box your ears or joggle 
your elbow and upset your tea all over your immaculate 
waistcoat ! 

Thank heaven ! Andrew is not a modern youth. It is not 
often that 1 publicly own how much I prefer him to other 
men — having once made a full confession of that weakness in 
a cold church on a bleak March day, attired in an absurd 
white dress, I feel I can let the subject alone as a rule — but 
in this affair of manners I must say that after associating 
with Andrew and his kind one gets a perfect shock at times 
on being precipitated into modern society. Oh ye maidens,, 
don't stand it ! Don't pretend to like it and say it is " awfully 
jolly " to be " real pals ■" with a man and not stand on ceremony. 
One can be " pals " without forgetting politeness, and if you 
allow your pal to forget that you are a lady and he is a 
gentleman you are losing a good deal more than you gain. 
So much has been said on both sides of this question that it 
is not for me to raise my voice ; no one can appreciate more 
fully the boon of freer intercourse between men and women,, 
but, dear girls who read these pages, take this hint from me. 
Politeness and courtesy are partly the result of breeding,, 
partly of unselfishness. If a man is deficient in manners you 
must inevitably suspect that he is either ill-bred or selfish, or 
probably both. It is of no use saying " it is only his way '" — 
selfishness or ill-breeding alone permit a man to commit 
such breaches of mannei's as sprawling in unseemly attitudes 
in a lady's drawing-room, allowing her to wait on him, and 
so forth. There are, of course, circumstances and occasions 
when a hard-and-fast rule of conduct cannot be drawn, but 
the advice of a woman who has been singularly fortunate in 
her relations with the other sex is, " Draw the line as near as 
possible to conventional standards, for these standards are 



DUTCH BORNEO 



91 




the results of accumulated experience and are part of the 

civilisation to which we are born. The more consideration 

you expect the more you'll get, and vice verm. Otherwise 

you may make friends with, or perhaps 

marry, men who are ill-bred and selfish, 

and a worse fate cannot befall you." 

Of course I am speaking of grown -^^^^ 

men, one can't be too hard on callow 

boys, but if every self-respecting girl 

did her best to improve the manners 

and raise the tone of the boys of her 

acquaintance we should get a better 

crop of gentlemen. Of course we 

cannot expect better manners from 

our friends than we practise ourselves, 

but ! 

Andrew i^ays I am rapidly getting on 
to my pet topic, the education of girls, 
and that once there we shall never get 
back to Singapore. He is terribly 
sensible at times, is Andrew, and really 
I almost wish he had not such a clear perception of the 
relevancy of things, for I do like to " maunder" on. 

It is time, however, to say good-bye to our little family on 
the Sarie Brunei — for one thing, I've eaten all the bananas 
and Ah Ting has picked a deadly quarrel with Ah Fong. 
They can't understand each other except in pidgin English, 
as one is a Cantonese and the other comes from the north. 
Therefore as we shake hands with pessimistic captain and 
jovial mate, we hear Ah Fong following the retreating form 
of Ah Ting with words like these : " You velly dirty sneak- 
pig-damn-dog ! Makee muchee tlouble this side ! My velly 
glad you go 'way chop-chop ! " 




CHAPTER VIII 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY AND A HAPPY ENDING 



A roundabout way to Manila — We start off with impaired 
digestions — How to cater for passengers — Life on the ocean 
wave — Of cats — A night alarm — Of whisky " as used in the 
Houses of Parliament "—The Scots traveller is sarcastic — He 
is thirsty — Andrew and the Dutchman sit it out — Labuan at 
last — A deserted Crown Colony — Scenery and stories — 
Kudat — A night attack — Baffled by condensed milk — Dutch 
phlegm and Highland pluck — A lonely woman — Sandakan — 
An invitation from Americans — Concerning clothes 

OW I am going to skip many pages of 
my recollections and take my reader 
slowly but surely to Manila. We 
decided to go there vid Labuan and 
North Borneo, as there are German 
steamers which do the trip by this 
route from Singapore to Manila. I 
don't recommend it to any one for 
comfort ! We had secured the captain's 
cabin on account of its superior accom- 
modation, and made every other preparation possible to 
ensure our comfort, but the way that boat rolled was in- 
describable, and this, added to absolutely uneatable food and 
a perfect symposium of smells, knocked me over completely. 




A VOYAGE OF MISERY 93 

I saw two enormous cockroaches walking across my berth, 
and then I fled into the open air, and resolved to stay there 
the rest of the voyage. There was another unfortunate 
woman on board and we soon exchanged words of sympathy. 
She was in worse case than myself, for her husband was a 
very bad sailor, had already collapsed, and lay face down- 
wards on a cane chair, looking perfectly dead. I must 
mention that we were made to come on board twenty-four hours 
before we started, so that our insides had become thoroughly 
upset by the food before the tossing began. It was explained 
to us that these boats, mainly intended for cargo, have been 
fitted for a few passengers, and the captain is allowed so 
much per head for food. He in his turn gives his head boy 
so much, and the head boy expends what seems to him fit, 
the sum diminishing each time. The first day we all sat 
down to dinner, but the head boy evidently thought our 
appetites too good, for he introduced us to a kind of rissole 
— ugh ! my gorge rises at the thought of it. Next day the 
ladies and my friend's husband were not present, and of 
the half-dozen men only three held out to the third day. 
These were a Scottish traveller in whisky, a Dutch concession- 
hunter, and Andrew. The traveller gave in on the fourth day, 
but Andrew and the Dutchman sat it out, though I believe 
the latter left before cheese. 

If the food was bad the drink was worse. The universal 
male demand for whisky led to the production of a bottle 
bearing a wonderful label and the statement " Used in the 
Houses of Parliament." The commercial traveller tasted it, 
put down his glass and stared thoughtfully at the label. 
Then addressing the head boy he said with his slow Glasgow 
accent: "Whaur-r did ye find yon bottle?" The delicate 
Scots irony was, I fear, entirely lost. It was the same com- 
mercial traveller who, a few days later, was invited by Andrew 



94 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

to share a rather less poisonous drink unearthed from some- 
where. " Thank ye, no ! " he replied. " Aw'm thinkin' awVe 
hed as much as is guid for-r me." He then related how, 
feeling thirsty in the middle of the night, he had got up and 
drunk what he believed to be about half a bottle of water. 
In the morning he discovered the water bottle full and the 
whisky bottle empty ! " I thocht it was vary guid water-r ! '"' 
he remarked. 

It w^as not only slightly rough weather, but it was very 
hot, the sort of temperature which makes frequent baths a 
necessity. Mrs. F. and I investigated the bath-room. The 
bottom of the bath looked very black, and as we gazed it 
seemed to move a little : we fled, first to the ship's side and 
then to our long chairs. We all had our mattresses and 
sheets brought up at night and camped out on the little deck, 
Andrew and I at one side, in the lee of a sort of chest, the 
F.s in the corner by the companion, the others sardine-wise 
on every other quarter of the deck. The mattresses were 
thin and the boards were hard ; peculiar odours seemed to be 
wafted on every breeze ; the vibration of the screw went 
through and through us. Andrew slept like a top. I recollect 
one nis;ht of mintjled stiffness and sea-sickness when towards 
the dawn I fell into a light doze and dreamt I was in a comfy 
bed at home. I was awakened by a miaou. Now I hate cats, 
it gives me the creeps to have one touch me ; so imagine my 
feelings when I saw in the dusk a long, lean, mangy creature 
tip-toeing towards me with gleaming eyes, and followed — 
oh horror! — by four little, lean, mangy objects just like itself! 
I dug my elbow sharply into Andrew and screamed. Andrew 
woke up Avith a yell, the F.s thought the ship was on fire, 
and the next few minutes were lively ones all round. Unfor- 
tunately the cats escaped, though I threw Andrew's slippers 
after them. The odours by which my slumbers were disturbed 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 95 

were afterwards explained when I found that the cook kept 
all his vegetables, including onions, in the chest against 
which we slept. 

During that most miserable voyage the F.s and myself 
subsisted on Brand's essence, of which luckily they had brought 
a store ; and I will give that essence a gratuitous advertise- 
ment, and say that it kept us alive if little else. Brand's 
essence is one of the things, however, that I shall never fancy 
again. The Dutchman used to regard us with a beneficent 
smile every few hours, as we lay in a row, and say, " How is 
ze hospital ? Are you hongry ? 'Ave a pork chop ? " He 
and Andrew smoked enormous cigars all day, which was a 
little unfeeling, but they atoned for it by raiding the larder, 
and discovering where the head boy had secreted a store of 
oranges, which were very welcome to us. 

Labuan was the first stop, and is a little island lying off 
the north coast of Borneo. Here is the description of it from 
my diary : 

An island shaped rather like a wedge, with a spine of hills 
running up to the point, the whole covered with low coarse 
scrub, save here and there in the valleys patches of green 
padi and occasional stretches of grass on the higher ground. 
These have been toilfully cleared from the original jungle. 
All over the island, rising above the ferns, mangoes, palms, 
and a few common flowering shrubs, are the ghosts of enormous 
trees stretching lean arms to heaven, or standing like broken 
columns of some ancient temple. They are calcined till they 
are ashen grey ; their trunks rise bare, their branches are 
mere stumps, and they are so extraordinarily out of pro- 
portion with the vegetation beneath a^^ to suggest the words : 
" There were giants in those days." These are the remains 
of a far more luxuriant jungle, destroyed by fire in the early 
sixties. Jungle fires still keep down the bracken and scrub. 



96 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

leaving burnt brushwood to mingle with the young green 
leaves, but this great fire licked up not only the small and 
frail but the lords of the forest — the great and majestic trees, 
of which not one is left. When the first Englishman landed 
at Labuan, however, the island was merely an uninhabited 
jungle. It is to the initiative of the first Rajah Brooke, who 
saw in the harbour and the adjacent coal supply the raison 
d'etre for developing the island, that Labuan owes its emer- 
gence from this condition. The name simply signifies " a 
harbour,"" and this was the keynote of early British intercourse. 
The Rajah hoped that Labuan would rival Singapore. Euro- 
pean troops were quartered on the low swamps near the 
harbour, where they died off like flies. Later on they were 
moved to the higher ground, and convicts — some of the flotsam 
of the Indian Mutiny — -were set to make roads and build 
barracks. A native regiment replaced the European one, 
the coal-mines were worked spasmodically and unsuccessfully 
by various companies, fever lurked constantly among the 
swamps, and the British Government began to weary of a 
possession which, nominally a Ci-own Colony, did nothing to 
justify its existence. In 1883 a charter was asked for, and 
granted to a company, the exploitation of North Borneo, 
and in 1890 Labuan was also formally handed over to that 
company, to the disgust of the few British residents in the 
island, who, it is related, refused at first to live under the 
" Borneo Cat " (the company's flag), and hauled down that 
ensign which had been hoisted by the first Governor for the 
company. 

The arrival at Labuan is made picturesque by a number of 
small islands, thickly covered with trees and scrub, which lie 
dotted about and have to be carefully steered through, until 
at length the steamer lies close to the island of Labuan. 
The harbour looks quiet and deserted ; a line of sheds 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 97 

(godowns) with corrugated iron roofs lies on the edge of 
the water ; a few native huts cluster round the side of the 
bay; an ugly wooden pier runs out, and several wooden 
buildings glistening with white paint seem to represent the 
shipping offices. A small steam launch and some native 
boats — long, shallow dug-outs, in which the natives, packed 
tightly knee to back, are paddling canoe-fashion; one Chinese 
boat with a big swelling red sail — this is practically all the 
traffic in the harbour. The mail steamer for Singapore lies 
at the side of the wooden pier, and a stream of brown figures 
trickling across the wharf to her side shows she is coaling. 
A rather desultory-looking railway-line runs down to the pier 
and brings the coal from the mines at Coal Point. There is 
a straggling, unfinished air about everything, and one misses 
the bustle, colour, and noise of the usual landing at Eastern 
ports. 

A roughly improvised path across a sort of mud flat brings 
one to the road, and here an ancient gharri, or tiny hooded 
waggonette, with a diminutive Sulu pony, receives us, and 
we bowl along a white road towards Government House. 
We pass through a Chinese street of shops, if one can dignify 
with that name a row of huts with a rudely covered side-walk. 
Here are the usual signs of Chinese industry. The barber 
operating on a customer's ear, the tailor's shop with its 
machines and irons, and the general store where a quite 
respectable assortment of tinned things can be had. This is 
the "Whiteley" of Labuan, and it is remarkable what a 
catholic assortment of things has been collected by Eng Watt 
in this little shanty with its open front. In all the shops 
there is the usual assembly of bare, bronze-backed Chinamen 
in their blue drawers, doing absolutely nothing, and in the 
gutter which divides the street from the sidewalk the in- 
evitable lean fowls are scratching about, while brown babies 



98 TWO ()\ THEIR TRAVELS 

— shirtless, or with extremely inadequate shirts — play happily 
in the dust. Even the elder children are often beautifully 
disencumbered with garments, but a percentage are clad in 
trousers with no knees, and little Malay boys all possess caps, 
if nothing else. The little brown, nude babies, with curious 
tufts of black hair hanging from their shaven pates, are 
adorned as a rule with bracelets and anklets of silver or 
beads, and the little imps scamper and roll in the dust, or 
stand finger in mouth staring at the stranger with questioning 
black eyes. 

The Brunei Malavs, many of whom are to be seen at 
Labuan, come from the mainland and are descendants of 
early colonists who founded a powerful Malay State, which, 
as early as the sixteenth century, was the paramount power in 
Borneo, conducting a considerable trade with China and the 
Philippines. This State of Brunei is now in its extreme 
decadence. We made the acquaintance of one of the Royal 
House, Avhose only sign of power and magnificence was the 
presence on his first finger of a large gold ring set with a 
white pebble. He was otherwise attired in an old blue jacket 
and tight trousers with a sarong twisted kilt-wise round his 
waist; he wore a plain round cap and carried a large blue cotton 
umbrella. This was our first rencojitre with a Malay prince. 

Leaving behind the hot wharf and the Chinese shops, a 
fairly good road takes us past the little white wooden school 
which also serves as an Anglican church ; past the barracks, 
where a dark-faced Sikh in khaki stands sentry ; past a group 
of prisoners in dingv white clothes and wicker hats, busy in 
some work of repair to the road ; across a railway line, which 
cuts athwart the road with no accessories of gates or barriers 
(this is a convenient place to catch the train out to Coal 
Point ; one puts up a hand and the puffing, snorting 
engine stops), then into an avenue, green and beautiful. 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 



99 



Soon the road is bordered on either side with trees and 
jung'le with occasional bung'alows nestling among the palms. 
These are built native-fashion on piles, and are surrounded 
with matting screens as a pitiful attempt at coohiess. The 
absence of verandahs and the box-like nature of these 
hastily built bungalows, sparselv shaded by palms, makes one 
shudder to think of the 
heat inside. The road 
at one point makes a 
picture not to. be for- 
gotten, running straight 
and white beneath arch- 
ing boughs. The trees 
are soft and feathery, 
their foliage of a silverv 
grev green, save where 
here and there the spikes -^^^ 

of a palm break the ^'""-^ ^"^ '''"'-^ ^--^'^^- 

monotony. Numbers of the trees have been destroyed by 
lire, and we pass through a sort of avenue of blasted trunks 
whose whitened shapes and delicate tracerv of branches stand 
out against the surrounding green. A Sikh policeman in 
khaki, a group of white-shrouded Tamils with their lean legs 
and their dark faces, some native women ^\'ith a welcome 
note of colour in their faded red and blue swathings — all 
these pause to stare as the Government gharri passes, and 
raise their hands to their foreheads as a salute — not a la 
Tommy Atkins, but touching their frontals with the tips of 
their fingers, their knuckles being outwards. Government 
House lies in an almost English-looking park, with grassy 
knolls crowned with trees, a winding drive with trim white 
gates, and a view from the verandah of the distant bay seen 
like a streak of silver framed in green. Were it not for an 




L.ofC. 



100 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

occasional palm, or the crimson trails of a bougainviUiers, or 
perhaps the red note of the " flame o' the forest," here and 
there amidst the rich green, one might well be in England. 
The illusion is fostered by trim lawns and flower-beds, in 
which canna and cactus are flourishing, while chrysanthemums 
are struggling to support a stunted existence. 

The unaccustomed eye, however, notices the difference in 
atmospheric effect. The distant shores of the bay have no 
exquisite veil of translucent violet. They are green, and 
their banks are brick-red ; less so than the foreground, but 
still distinct and unwavering in their colour. It is always 
noon-tide ; the shadows lie flat ; the smallest leaf has its 
outline and the tiniest branch is distinct against the clear 
sky. The very shadows lack depth and richness, and the 
whole landscape, beautiful as it is, with wide stretches of 
grass and trees, with brilliant foreground of shrubs and 
glimpse of water in the distance, seems painted in colours 
that are bright but flat, for the play of light and shade is 
lacking. The high lights dazzle ; the shades have no gradations, 
no cooling greys and blues ; and there are no half-tones. It 
is beautiful but soulless. The setting sun alone can give the 
touch that is needed, and the fairy moon when she rises has 
to make a new world and turn all the lights to silver and the 
shadows to ebony. It is still, close, and airless here ; but 
when we reach the summit of the tiny range which makes 
the backbone of the island, a pleasant breeze greets us. Here 
we have a view of Borneo mainland, with green foreshore and 
a trace of blue hills in the background. Here are the hospital, 
several pleasant bungalows, the telegraph quarters, and the 
cemeteries — rather desolate enclosures, suggesting sad thoughts 
of the lives that have been spent on fruitless work in this 
out-of-the way spot and of those who lie here so far from 
home. They are not always permitted to lie in peace. 







fi.S'- " ' #tt 4V 





IN A LABUAN GARDEN. 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 101 

Whether the hunt be for treasure or for some particular 
bone, there is a terrible possibility overhanging every grave 
in these cemeteries. Within the last few months the tomb 
of a police official from Borneo, Avho died and was buried 
here, has been — and not for the first time — torn open and 
his bones scattered far and wide. Some years ago one of the 
European residents, unable to sleep for the heat, wandered 
up the hill in the moonlight and leant over the gate of the 
little burying-ground. There among the gravestones were 
two dark figures hard at work digging. He sprang over the 
gate, whereupon they fled before he could distinguish their 
appearance. It does not seem to be skulls these creatures 
are seeking, for when they violated the grave of a mother 
and her infant, the two skulls were found stuck on posts 
outside, '^riiese gruesome stories are quite of recent date. 
The wife of an Englishman who died while he was Consul at 
Labuan Avas buried by him and one faithful native in 
the Government grounds at dead of night, and to this day 
only he and that native know the whereabouts of the secret 
grave. 

In modern, and (from the native point of view) degenerate 
days, head-hunting has been officially suppressed both in 
Sarawak and North Borneo ; but the practice still obtains 
in the remoter districts, and in the most degraded form. So 
great is the passion for obtaining a head somehow, that 
nowadays men do not go on the war-path (as in old times), 
but lurk about the edge of the forest, near some cultivated 
field, and suddenly pounce down on some poor unsuspecting- 
old man, and even woman or child, who is taken unawares. 
Singing songs of his prowess and daring, just as if he had 
performed some deed of valom', the man then returns, and 
is well received by the women of the village. The Governor 
of North Borneo told us he had counted thirty skulls on one 



102 TWO OX THEIR TRAVELS 

hut, and of these many apparently of recent date, and some 
un ( I ouhtecWy females ! 

The history of pioneering in North Borneo is full of giim 
antl o-hastly tales, but none perhaps more dramatic than that 
of the twin brothers, whom I will call the Stones. 

Henry Stone was up-country on the Kinabatangan river, 
trading and living peaceably, and had given the natives 
cretlit to a considerable amount. He began to press for 
payment. The people rose against him, tied him up to a 
tree, had feasting and dancing for twenty-four hours round 
him, and then murdered him. The chiefs wife struck the 
first blow with a big piece of wood. Being frightened after- 
wards, they sent all his property safely to the nearest post. 
ar,d gave a circumstantial account of his death from sickness. 
His twin brother was second in command of the police, and 
several months after, accompanied by one other official and 
twelve Dyaks, went up country to get his brother's bones for 
burial. They found the grave and the skeleton in a condition 
which admitted of no doubt as to the manner of death- 
smashed to pieces and the head severed from the body. 
Without pausing Captain Stone and his party pushed straight 
forward to the village ^vhere the murderers lived, arrived 
there before he was expected, and found the people all off 
their guard. Two Dyaks stole out of the jungle, and, 
listening under the great house where the natives all lived 
together, heard them laughing and talking. They took back 
the news ; Captain Stone led his men up, surrounded the 
house, and, rushing in, killed every man. The women and 
children were spared ; 0]ie or two, however, were shot in the 
melee. This sanguinary vengeance, though contrary to the 
usual practices of the English, is said to have had an excellent 
effect, putting an end to many bad characters, and ensuring 
the safety of white men in that part of the country. There 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 103 

was a good deal of talk about it at the time, but nothing 
was done to punish the chief actors, who enlisted sympathy 
by their pluck and by the nature of the crime they avenged 
so grimly. 

Leaving Labuan, we went on up the coast to Sandakan, 
dropping in on our way to spend a few hours at Kudat which 
is one of the harbours. The English community was still a 
good deal fluttered by a recent rising of the natives. Every- 
body who knows anything of Borneo has heard of the rebel 
Mat Salleh, who gave the company so much trouble until 
he was killed. After his death the Europeans thought they 
would live in peace, since the tribes of the interior were 
scattered and broken up. Little outbreaks, fiowever, have 
occurred at intervals, for the interior of Boi-neo is so wild 
and unknown that it is easy for the offenders to escape. On 
this occasion it is thought that a rebuke administered by an 
European to a native servant aroused the anger of the latter, 
who went back to his tribe and incited them to vengeance, 
telling them at the same time the arrangement of the 
barracks— a sentry here, another there, a guard asleep in 
front ; the method of challenge " Hookumdar ? '' and the 
answer " Fren," whereupon the "friend" shoots the sentry 
dead. The villagers who desired to make a raid picked up 
others as they passed along, offering them shares in the loot. 
A man came to warn the Resident of this attack, but his 
story was disbelieved and he himself put under arrest. The 
attacking party counted on the sentries having only live 
charges of shot with them, that being not unusual, as the 
Sikhs are lazy and will not carry more though it is served 
out to them. On this occasion they were luckily better 
provided. It must be explained that these police all over 
the territory are called Sikhs, but very few are really so, 
beine- all sorts and conditions of Hindoos, and they are little 



104 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

suited for isolation oi- ap-countiy work. For instance, one 
station, garrisoned with eight or nine of these Sikhs 
(without an European officer), when attacked by the rebels, 
was evacuated by the police, who threw down their Martini- 
Henrys and ran away, and the rebels in that district are 
consequently the richer by guns and ammunition. As a rule 
their arms a.re old guns, and they collect empty cartridges, 
which they refill. 

On this occasion the affronted natives accordingly came 
along the shore, took the barracks and arsenal, which are 
quite unprotected on two sides, and shot the sentries. After 
firing a few shots the rest of the police got away. News 
was sent up to the Resident, and every one thought Kudat 
was in hands of the rebels. At daybreak the police were 
collected and marched back in two parties, and it was found 
that the rebels, thinking their victory secure, had broken into 
the store and were busy opening tins of condensed milk. A 
scuffle ensued, about thirty rebels being killed or wounded, 
and the rest captured. During this scuffle a Dutchman, who 
was staying in the Kudat hotel, was awakened early in the 

morning by the sound of firing. " D those energetic 

Britishers ! "" he said. " Fancy their having target-practice 
at this time ni the morning, spoiling decent folks' sleep ! "" 
As the firing went on he gave up the attempt to sleep and 
went down to his bath. A bullet came ping" through the 
Tiadjong walls and embedded itself in the door. The Dutch- 
man was furious. " They can't even fire straight but must 
go shooting all over the shop, wasting ammunition too ! I 
shall go up and complain to the Resident ! " He carried his 
complaint, however, first of all to the hotel keeper and found 
that worthy in an extremely perturbed frame of mind. They 
grow cool people in Kudat. A young official there on out- 
post duty on the same occasion, not wishing to give the alarm 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 105 

by firing, on being approached by a native seized him, pum- 
melled him well with his fists and tied him up with his 
handkerchief just ni time to tackle a second one, whom he 
treated in a similar fashion. There was one English lady 
living at Kudat, but her lot, though lonely, was nothing 
compared to that of the wife of one of the railway employes 
who were making a line through part of Borneo. This woman, 
when we saw her, was at Jesselton, smaller, lonelier, and more 
squalid than Kadat, Avith only half a dozen Europeans in all. 
She gave us tea in her tiny bungalow and told us simply that 
she always went with her husband wherever his work took 
him. She had been three years at Buluwayo in the early 
days. She was just preparing to move with her husband 
some eight miles up the line to a practically isolated spot, 
and in view of the not very friendly character of the natives I 
thought this very plucky and told her so. She replied that 
a white woman commanded respect in these parts, but she 
added, with a meditative eye on the flimsy walls of her 
bungalow, " It would be more comfortable to feel that one's 
sleeping room, at all events, was bullet-proof 

Sandakan, our last place of call in North Borneo, is quite a 
big place and very pretty. It is built on a little peninsula, 
so that from the top of the hills behind the town one can see 
the sea on either side. Sandakan possesses a very nice club, 
with tennis grounds where a Filipino band plays twice a week, 
a stone church, still incomplete. Government House and offices 
and a number of pretty and spacious bungalows, many of 
Avhich stand in their own grounds, which are bright with 
flowers. I imagine the European population to be about 
thirty or forty, perhaps a few more. There is a large and 
picturesque Chinese quarter, and a very pretty Malay village, 
but the nicest thing about Sandakan is the road which 
meanders through the town, along the cliff' side towards the 



106 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Malay village in one direction, and in the other by twisting, 
winding paths, overhung with exquisite foliage and flowering 
shrubs, to the point of the peninsula, whence a splendid view 
of the sea can be had. There are several traps in Labuan, 
and at least one, always spoken of as the buggy, in Kudat, 
but I don't think there are any wheeled conveyances in San- 




dakan. Every one rides the sure-footed, fat little Sulu ponies, 
or goes about in a chair carried by two Chinese coolies. 
Andrew always had four to his chair, and his cortege was most 
impressive. 

At Sandakan we had our usual luck, for some American 
officers came over from the Sulu islands, and when they heard 
Andrew's name, and that he had credentials to the American 
executive in Manila, they offered to take us with them, which 
would give us an opportunity of seeing some of the islands 
en route to Manila. They were with a scientific party, 
travelling in a small steamer hired for the purpose, partly for 
pleasure, and partly to obtain some information about the 



A VOYAGE OF MISERY 107 

islands. At the word " information " Andrew pricked up his 
ears like a terrier who hears " rats ! " I pricked up mine also 
at the news that there wore several ladies on board, and I 
beg-an bitterly to regret that I had sent all my nice things on 
to Hongkono". 

I may add that never, at any period of my travels, did I 
succeed in having exactly the clothes I wanted, despite the 
fact that I had in my luggage practically every kind of garment 
that I needed. It was impossible to take the whole lot with 
me, however, and I never managed to have just the trunk I 
required. Later on Andrew simplified the matter by losing- 
all my trunks — but that story must come in its place. When 
I started oiF on this journey, I made great inquiries as to 
clothes. Andrew had only one idea. After meditating for 
a long time he said he was sure I should want a solah topee 
(sun hat) but couldn't think of anything else. I will now 
give all my readers a tip which would have been worth good- 
ness knows what to me. Take for evenine; wear, whenever 
you travel in the tropics, the thinnest black gown you can get 
with long sleeves — not very tight. The reason is that one's 
arms get mosquito-bitten and that long gloves are out of the 
question in the heat. It is better to. have the dress black 
because if you are seasick and your Chinese servant or yoiu* 
husband packs for you, he will probably put the stuff you 
shine your patent shoes with on the top, and it will break 
and inundate the whole trunk. Boot-blacking smells nasty 
but doesn't show — much — on black silk. Don't take fine 
muslins or coloured cottons, except for special occasions. 
Don't have collars to your frocks, and don't take Paris hats. 
All these things are' a weariness to the flesh. In all kinds of 
tropical travelling one wants : 

(1) A warm coat and skirt — serge for preference — rain- 
proofed. 



108 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

(2) An iinlined alpaca coat and a couple of skirts. 

(3) Quantities of white cambric and silk blouses, and 
plenty of linen skirts. 

(4) Some dark-coloured cambric and silk blouses to match 
coats and skirts. 

(5) Some loose wrappers of nun's-veiling. 

(6) A Panama straw hat, and a smart burnt straw shape, 
with one or two made-up " trimmings."" 

(7) A couple of evening frocks, say one coloured and one 
black, as described before. A high silk bodice to one of these 
(unlined) will do duty as an afternoon gown. 

With these as the foundation you can count on being neatly 
and comfortably attired under almost any circumstances — 
unless, of course, you are going to attend race-meetings or 
Vice-regal garden-parties. 

This is some of the trousseau with which I mentally provided 
myself before joining the American party, and I tried hard 
not to reproach Andrew for having beguiled me into the idea 
that I could get anything I wanted made on the spot wherever 
I went. 

There wasn't much temptation to spend money in North 
Borneo, though some of the Malay woven sarongs and silver 
work is nice. " Wait till you get to Manila," said Andrew, 
and I waited. 



CHAPTER IX 

OF WOMEN, MEN AND THE SULU AECHIPELAGO 

We join the Cachuca—Oi spinsters— Be good and you will be 
beautiful — Of American women— Of husbands— A meek 
millionaire— The Sulus— A Malay dandy— S//-i boxes— The 
story of Doiia Isabella— A much engaged army 

ERTAINLY the next few weeks were among 
the most pleasant we have ever spent, 
despite cramped quarters and not very in- 
terestino; diet on board the Caclmca. A 
scientific big-wig who was bug-hunting in 
the archipelago was the head of our expedi- 
tion, and he was accompanied by two daugh- 
ters, Sadie and Mamie, who interested me 
deeply as being the first samples of young American 
womanhood I had had an opportunity of studying. There 
were several other ladies in the party, all young matrons 
with the exception of a Miss Belinda Banks, who was neither 
young nor a matron — perhaps if she had been a matron she 
would have seemed younger, but she had a way of emphasising 
her virginity by wearing white muslin and baby-ribbon 
which added years to her age. She was a soul, too, and 
prided herself on her deep insight into Nature. For this 
reason she could never let Nature alone, but had to go on 




no TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

talking about it all the time — " Isn't the tender grey of that 
reflection just too lovely ? My! what a pur-ifectly adorable 
.shade of green,'' &c. &c. She had a fat book into which she 
faithfully copied all her observations, and she read them 
aloud in a whisper to a thin young man whom she had 




annexed as her particular property. I overheard her one 
day, and from the style imagine that she was writing a 
detailed account of the tour. It ran thus : " In honour of 
our arrival the town was gaily decorated with a profusion of 
arches."" (N.B. — The decoration was in honour of a saint's 
dav, but no matter.) "The first of these was of elegant 
shape, measuring about thirty feet in height and ten in 
breadth. It was constructed of bamboo interlaced, and 
twined with ropes of paper flowers, the interstices being 
some ten inches in diameter and " — but here I fled. A little 
later on I passed Miss Banks again, and I heard her whisper- 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 111 

ing : " We were now shown into an elegant parlour " (heavens ! 
in the Phinppines !) " measuring some twenty feet square and 
decorated tastefully with," Szc. &c. 

When Miss Belinda was not writing in her fat book or 
reading it aloud, or admiring the scenery audibly and telling 
us just how it made her feel, she was occupied with some 
hideous knitting, and I need not explain that it was for a 
mission. Lest I have been unkind to poor Miss B. B., let me 
add, too, that she belonged to a very noble army of martvrs 
— the poor, unattractive younger sisters of the female sex, 
who with hearts full of love and no one to bestow it on, try 
to fill up their lives in other ways — and remember pathetic- 
ally that a cultivated mind and beautiful soul shine through 
the plainest face. Let me not be mistaken. I know there 
are women, and not always plain women, who are really happy 
and useful unmarried, and who remain so for choice, being- 
sensible enough to realise that matrimony can only satisfy 
one's highest aspirations if one marries the right man. They 
go on their way serene and strong, albeit a little lonely, but 
Miss Belinda was not one of these. In her little coquetries 
of dress, her constant smiles and oppressive cheerfulness it 
was almost impossible not to feel that she was consciously 
striving to make up for the homely features bestowed on her 
by Nature, and to assume the place in people's estimation 
which is reserved for the young and attractive. One coidd 
imagine her saying to herself: " Belinda, dear, you are not 
pretty, but you are bright and brainy ; men like a woman to 
be bright and brainy ! " 

Apropos of Miss B. B. I cannot help recording my 
impression of American women generally, not only from 
that experience but from others, in which I was brought 
into close contact with them. It is absurd to generalise 
about women at all, and I advance my ideas with the utmost 



112 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

diffidence ; but as I think of the list of my American 
acquaintances, I am struck by one dominant feature. I 
won't go so far as to say that American women are selfish, 
but they are certainly to an extraordinary degree self-centred. 
This does not prevent them from being interesting intellect- 
ually, but it always seemed to me that my Transatlantic female 
cousins cultivate their minds just as one cultivates a window- 
garden — to make the best show to the world. Every woman 
who reads at all — and the number is proportionately far 
larger than in England — belongs to a reading or debating 
society. She is labelled as the adherent of one or other 
school of thought. She rushes into print whenever possible. 
She is not at all afraid of being thought clever, as is the 
case with many Englishwomen; and although her conversation 
gains in interest her character loses, for she is apt to get 
opinionated and a trifle aggressive. American women are 
better talkers, brighter, and more amusing socially than we, 
but too often their wares are in their shop windows. 

It is all part of that self-centralisation of which I spoke. 
The bright, brainy American woman is always anxious to 
make a good impression, always occupied with showing herself 
to the best advantage, never indifferent or lethargic as are 
English women of different types. I don't say that American 
women are always showing off, but I do say that the attitude 
is one they naturally assume and adorn with much ease and 
grace. It is rare to see an American woman efface herself 
in any way; and on the whole, although her manners in 
society are prettier and more graceful than those of her 
English cousin, she is less ready with the little acts of tact 
and self-denial that constitute true politeness. Some of the 
nicest women I have met have been Americans married to 
Englishmen, and this fact makes me think that the faults 
of the fair sex in the United States are partly due to the men. 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 113 



American men apparently don't mind being- treated like 
worms. I know one who is rich, good-looking, and belongs 
to one of the first families in Boston, and yet he would act 
as rug-carrier to a girl for days, and the minute some one 
else came along he was shunted into the background. I met 
him one day loaded with shawls, parcels, and parasols, toiling 
behind while his fair one strolled 
ahead with a naval officer. I 
inquired politely : " Don't you feel 
a worm ? " He said : " I do — but 
what's to be done ? ^ My Avord ! 
If Andrew had been in his shoes 
there would have been battle, mur- 
der, and sudden death before night ! 

A girl who had lived half her 
life in the States and half in 
England, on being asked which she 
preferred, told me that the States 
were "far jollier for girls. You 
can get engaged to a man one day and break it off the next, 
and nobody thinks any the worse of you ! " 

The difference between British and American husbands is 
this : the Briton is the planet, and his wife and family are 
satellites which have no orbit of their own but revolve round 
him. I have known young unmarried Britons even, living 
with their mothers and sisters, who ruled the household with 
the same lofty air. If they were late, dinner was kept back ; 
if they went out, the cook was told: "Anything will do for 
dinner. Master Bertie is not at home." The women of 
Britain have to a certain extent risen against this bondage. 
They have clubs of their own »{the chief enjoyment they 
get out of them is to invite their men friends to lunch and 
tea there), sports of their own, trades of their own. The 

H 




114 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

unmarried ones escape from the orbit of their papas and 
brothers and circle round themselves in shabby rooms and poky 
flats in Ijondon. For a time it looked as though women were 
going to have the upper hand, but then the golf mania began 
and all hopes of women's rights were at an end. The man — 
who had begun to feel uncomfortably that he was no longer 
the centre of his little world, and that his women-folk were 
capable of amusing, and even supporting themselves without 
his aid — took a mean advantage and departed to the golf 
links, where he is absolutely independent of the whole world 
save one minute caddy. The vagaries of his womenkind no 
longer disturb him. He mounts — metaphorically — a golf 
club and soars to the empyrean, or, if language is any criterion, 
he descends with equal facility to " another place.*" The 
pleasure or displeasure of his wife or sister has become a 
matter of indifference to him ; the sacredness of the links 
ensures him absolute peace and quiet so long as he is on their 
hallowed precincts. He does not rely on female advice, 
sympathy or encouragement, for his caddy and his conscience 
are sufficient. He wants no one to spur him on to further 
efforts — his innate conviction that he will play better next 
day does that ; he no longer looks to female society for change 
and variety, for the never-exhausted possibilities and varying 
chances of the game supply all he requires. 

Women have tried very hard to emulate this philosophical 
abstraction of attitude, but in vain. The feminine soul is 
too complex to find full contentment in " chasing a qui-nine 
pill over green pastures,'"* 

The sad consequence of all this is that, while we hear so 
much about the freer intercourse of the sexes, and while it 
is certainly true that up to a certain age boys and girls cycle, 
boat, play and amuse themselves together, after that time 
the gulf opens and goes on widening until men and women 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 115 

are absolutely independent of each other — men for choice and 
women of necessity. It is, of com-se, partly because the women 
went on strike and didn't want to be regarded as appendages 
of their men-folk any longer. If the really old-fashioned 
" clinging " type of woman had found that her husband had 
taken to golf she would have " caddied" for him, and applauded 
every stroke. That would soon have cured him ! 

Well! They manage these things better in America. 
They have golf mania there, but it doesn t break up the 
happy home. I don't think there are many golf clubs in the 
States where the ladies' subscription is double that of the 
men, where they have the worst room in the club-house 
devoted to them and are debarred from playing two afternoons 
a week. That is the case in more than one club I know in 
England, and the attitude is significant. The British golf 
maniac has " no use for" women. How it has come about I 
can't say ; probably it is partly due to the better adjusted 
proportion of males and females in the New World than in 
the Old, but certainly the women of the States succeed in 
being planets, and their husbands, brothers and fathers make 
most willing satellites. When an Englishwoman marries she 
usually gives up her painting, music, debating society, or 
whatever little hobby she had been addicted to. She says 
she has "no time." The real truth is frequently that she 
ffets no encouragement from her husband. He doesn't want 
to hear about the rot they talked at the meeting to discuss 
Wordsworth, He doesn't see the use of painted milk-stools, 
and suggests that if she put buttons on the back of his shirt 
it would be better than practising her violin. He is full of 
his own affairs, of what he has just read in the papers, of the 
transactions at the last meeting of his golf club, of his 
successful " round " on the previous Sunday, or the shocking 
form of some other man. 



116 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Now, as I have not married an American, I don't know 
exactly what their attitude towards their wives' accomplish- 
ments is ; but I do know that American women don't consider 
a house and family, much less a husband, any excuse for 
neglectino- their own mental development. It is possible that 
they succeed in caring for their children, houses, husbands 
and for themselves at the same time — I believe some do. The 
strain nuist be enormous, and fully accounts for the neurotic 
diseases of many women. At the same time I am inclined 
to think that if pressure becomes too great, the American 
woman too often sacrifices her husband, her home or her 
children — not herself — and this is why I say that the American 
woman is selfish. Again, is there any country in the world 
where the women leave their husbands toiling in the city and 
go away for months to enjoy themselves, at the sea-side, on 
the continent, or indeed anywhere ? I should like to see the 
hardworking Britisher — say a bank manager or Stock 
Exchange man (for I am not talking only of millionaires) — 
who would sit quiet and write cheques while his wife spent 
months in pleasure-trips to Paris, or travelled about in the 
States for amusement. 

It all comes back to the same point — the fundamental 
difference in family life; in Britain the male thing is number 
one, in the States the female. I don't say which is best. I 
deplore the habit of too many of my sisters of sinking their 
individuality in that of their husbands, and limiting their 
interests to his horizon. But a great doubt assails me whether 
this is not the attitude in which women are of the most service 
to the state and the world at large. You see, the cases cannot 
be altogether reversed ; even if the man ceases to be a planet, 
he must still to a certain extent revolve independently, since 
he has his business or trade to attend to. Now, unless the 
woman is the breadwinner, her separate interests must be 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 117 

Avorks, not of necessity but of supererogation. She is either 
trying- to improve herself or some one else — both laudable but 
not indispensable employments^ — I mean indispensable to the 
life of the family. The ideal woman, therefore, will take the 
indispensable part first, and will enter into her husband's 
work and play with all her soul, because if she doesn't some 
Other woman may, and then there will be " ructions " and the 
family life will suffer. Then she will look well to her children 
and home, and to those, whether rich or poor, who may need 
it she will give that rarest gift — sympathy. By this time her 
life will be pretty full, but the busiest people invariably 
accomplish most, and if she is a wise, as well as a good woman, 
she will make time in which to inform her mind, and will 
diligently practise any little accomplishments she may possess. 
This sapient advice is to married women only ; before marriage 
one's first duty is to oneself, after marriage it is to one's hus- 
band. But to neglect one's own mental equipment is not the 
only way to perform one's first duty. 

But to return to our muttons. 1 wonder how many of my 
readers have any idea where the Sulu archipelago is ! And 
yet this group of islands, lying between Borneo and the 
Philippines, has had a deeply interesting and romantic 
history. Spain, as every one knows, conquered the Philippines 
more than three hundred years ago, and misruled them until 
quite recently. The Sulu archipelago, however, was never 
properly conquered, though expedition after expedition was 
sent there. In the first place Christianity, to which all the 
more civilised tribes of the Philippines were converted soon 
after the Spanish conquest, could never get a hold in the 
Sulu islands (Jolo is the Spanish name). The people are all 
Mohammedans, and differ in customs, dress, and character 
from the Filipinos. They used to be terrible pirates, and 
were fond of descending on the neighbouring islands, killing 



118 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



all the old men and children and carrying off the women to 
their harems and the young men to be slaves. They are a 
very mixed race, owing to this habit of collecting wives by 
force, and it is said that they have lost some of their warlike 

characteristics. Their dress 
is extremely picturesque, 
consisting generally of 
trousers, tight jacket 
adorned with many but- 
tons, sarong twisted round 
the waist and turban knot- 
ted round the head. All 
these are of the brightest 
and most startling cot- 
tons or silks, frequently 
patterned in contrasting 
colours, and the effect is 
completed by an ornamen- 
tal T^r'is or holo, which is a 
short weapon with curved 




J\ Sul^, 



blade. A swagger halo is 



part of every gentleman's 
full dress, and he thrusts it through a sash at his waist, but 
he is also fond of carrying a stick, ivory-tipped or ornamented 
with carving, and if he is a person of consequence his s'tri box 
is borne by a slave. These siri boxes are among the nicest 
Malay curios. They are of brass or silver, and are decorated 
in various ways, but usually m ith geometrical designs scratched 
on the metal. Often they are of considerable size and 
contain several smaller boxes for the different condiments 
with which the Malay mixes his chewing-paste. Besides 
chewing siri their horrid habit is to make the teeth jetty 
black, and the toothless effect is hideous in the extreme. 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 119 

Added to that the lips and gums are stained crimson, and 
the former become loose and protrude, while the gums are 
surrounded by red saliva. The first place in which I saw 
betel-chewing was Colombo, where old hags squat at corners 
of the road and sell little lumps of betel wrapped in a green 
leaf. One gets accustomed to it after a bit, but it is very 
revolting, and only the young and sometimes the poorest 
people are exempt from it. Apro'pos of the black teeth, we 
were told in Japan that the custom by which women on their 
marriage were expected to black their teeth and shave their 
eyebrows is going out. I tried in vain to discover whether 
by so doing a woman is supposed to enhance her charms, or 
whether the act shows that she renounces all pretence to 
beauty for the future. I am inclined to think the latter 
reason must be the true one, otherwise the custom would never 
die out ! 

Although almost to the end of the Spanish dominion the 
Sulu archipelago remained rebellious, a certain number of 
officials and soldiers were quartered in different parts of the 
islands. Among these was one whom we will call Don Jose 
Rodrigues, a " Peninsular Spaniard," as the true-born Spanish 
are called in the Philippines. With him was his wife, Doiia 
Isabella, a handsome, gentle creature, who had her Spanish 
maid with her. There were at the same station a small body 
of soldiers and a commandant. One Sunday morning the 
Spanish ladies, in their black silk gowns and mantillas, went 
to hear Mass in the little barn -like church that had been 
raised by a Jesuit mission. The men accompanied them, 
and the majority of the Spanish soldiers attended as it was 
a feast day. The devout Spaniards knelt side by side in the 
front of the church, while the familiar Latin words rolled 
from the lips of the black-browed friar. About a score of 
native converts knelt behind, but in a pause of the service 



120 TAVO OX THEIR TRAVELS 

the Governor noted with surprise that the church was filling 
u}) — was full of Moros in their gay dresses. Suddenly a 
clang was heard ; the big doors swung to, the Spanish friar 
stopped suddenly in his reciting, the Governor sprang to his 
feet. Too late ! With a yell the Moros rushed on the little 
band of Europeans, slashing and thrusting with their deadly 
holos. Doiia Isabella, screaming, flung her arms round her 
husband — in vain ! Cruel hands tore them apart, and one 
by one she saw the butchery of her countrymen and faithful 
servants, while she and her maid and a few native Christian 
women were huddled into an agonised group surrounded on 
all sides by fierce faces and wild gestures. Then the little 
band of fainting women was hustled out on to the green in 
front of the chm'ch, and it was evident that divided counsels 
obtained as to what should be done with them. Unable to 
understand what was going on, the women clung to each 
other in an agony of fear, which reached its climax when 
some of the crowd round them, waving their holos, with 
angry shouts, seemed to be about to end the suspense. All 
at once, however, a shrill voice rose above the crowd, and an 
aged, toothless, but energetic woman pushed her way through 
the angry men. Gathering the ladies behind her, she harangued 
her countrymen in shrill, eloquent accents. Several times 
they seemed to lose patience, and made an effort to push her 
on one side, but she flung herself fearlessly in the Avay of the 
holos ; and at length, telling the unfortunate women to follow 
her closely, she pushed her way through the crowd, chattering 
volubly and apparently ridiculing those Avho stood in her 
way, for more than one laugh greeted her sallies. She led 
the way to her house — a small wooden bungalow — and there 
she conducted the ladies to an upper room, and, closing every 
aperture, left them, promising to return. For many days the 
Mretched women lay trembling in this hot, close room. Their 




A FILIPINO SAILING PRAHU, WITH CREW 
BALANCING ON OUTRIGGERS. 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 121 

protectress brought them food, and told them she would do 
her best to save them, but they must not be seen or the 
anger of the people might arise. Her motive for this act 
was the honour of her people, and no particular love for 
Spaniards had prompted her. True men do not kill 
defenceless women, she said, and she probably wished to avert 
the vengeance which such a deed would arouse. 

It is impossible to describe the sufferings of Doiia Isabella 
and hei- companions. Her raven hair was snowy white before 
her captivity ended. At last their protectress managed 
to smuggle them out in native boats, and they were picked 
up by one of the little trading-vessels which ply among the 
islands. They were brought to North Borneo and hospitably 
treated there, Doha Isabella exciting the deepest pity by her 
beauty and misfortunes. Sometimes she would throw off her 
griefs, and then the natural vivacity of the Spanish nature 
asserted itself, but more often a deep and terrible gloom 
overshadowed her. Her one desire was to get away from 
this terrible land, where the faces and dresses in the street 
reminded her of that awful day, and to return to beautiful 
Spain. She revisited in memory the orange-groves, the vine- 
yards, the gay, picturesque cities and rich, romantic scenery 
of her country. Alas ! she was never to see those scenes 
again. On the journey home she fell ill, sank rapidly, and 
died, never having recovered from the shock she had gone 
through. This is a true story and only happened a few years 
ago. 

Owing to an accident I was unable to go on shore at the 
capital of the Sulus ; but Andrew went, visited the Sultan, 
and saw some games which were got up in honour of the 
departure of the distinguished Americans, who had been 
bug-hunting for several weeks in the neighbourhood, and 
had won every one's heart by paying twice the ordinary price 



122 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

for everything they bought. Unfortunately Andrew has a 
fatal incapacity for describing anything. He came back and 
said it was most interesting, and that he had met an American 
officer who was full of information. When I heard that I 
despaired of getting any sense out of him, so I attacked the 
two girls, Sadie and Mamie. They were tall and smart, and 
had the sort of figures Avhich Andrew likens to a kangaroo. 
Sadie tucked a pink rose reflectively behind her ear and said: 
" It wasn't bad, but I guess there are too many married and 
engaged men in these islands. You see, when they left home 
plenty of them were unattached, but theyVe been away so 
long most have got lonesome and homesick, so they write 
and propose to the first girl they think of Of course, every 
girl in the States is just wild to have a beau at the war ; it 
makes her so interesting ; and so there's scarcely a man who 
doesn't go about with a photograph in his breast-pocket, and 
wants to show it you and have you sympathise with him. 
I'm pur-rfectly sick of sympathising." "That's nothing," 
chimed in her sister. " Only think of me ! I wasted a 
whole hour yesterday ! " " How was that ? " we inquired. 
" Why, you know that good-looking, tall fellow, the one we 
made up our minds was a woman-hater .'^''' " Yes," said her 
sister ; " and I thought you seemed to be getting on pretty 
well with him. I was right mad, for I do love women-haters." 
" He's not much of a woman-hater ! " said Mamie scornfully. 
" I laid myself out to be as fascinating as I knew, and at the 
end of a whole hour, when I thought he was going to tell me 
I was the only girl he'd ever been able to talk to, he turned 
round with tears — actually tears — in his eyes, and said he 
was pleased to meet me because I reminded him of his wife, 
and he'd been married the week before he left 'Frisco and 
hadn't seen her since ! " 

Sadie and Mamie were the first American girls to pass 



THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO 123 

through the islands after the American occupation, and as 
many of the young officers at distant stations had seen no 
women-kind for eighteen months or more they fell easy 
victims to the charms of the sisters, who left a track of 
bleeding hearts behind them. Usually, on returning from a 
visit to the shore, they were followed by detachments of 
orderlies bearing curios of all kinds, of which the young 
fellows stripped their quarters to present to the belles. On 
one occasion Sadie returned almost empty-handed and, in 
reply to my question as to " loot," said scornfully : " These 
men are not the gvving sort ; they're only the proimsmg sort. 
Still," she added pensively, " I left my address." 



CHAPTER X 

AMONG THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

Scotland in the East — A Filipino town — The little brown 
brother — Feminine extravagance — We sleep at the .-1 Icalde's — 
Eating and drinking — Of religious feeling — Cebu and Magellan 
— The romance of history — The American Voice — A British 
community — A perilous adventure — We nearly feed the 
sharks — Andrew is serious 




UR first stop was at Cagayaii 
Misamis, in the large island of 
Mindanao. The town is not on 
the sea-shore but lies a few 
miles inland, and the only sign 
of life in the little bay where 
we landed was a small landing- 
stage on which half a dozen 
men and boys sat fishing. I 
was gazing at the scene — -the 
blue water, curving shore with its fringe of sand, and a 
distant vista of mountains rolling back in folds of green and 
purple — and wondering of what it reminded me, when the 
inevitable Scots engineer murmured at my elbow in the well- 
known accent of the Tay-side : " Eh ! It's uncommon like 
the Gairloch ! ■" And so it was, though more perhaps like 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 125 

an epitome of all the Highland lochs — a sort of concentrated 
essence — than any particular one. Except for a palm here 
and there, nothing in the scenery reminded one of the tropics, 
and the deep green foliage, bright blue water and purple 
distance might be matched any glorious summer's day in 




bonny Scotland. Every one knows that group of fishers, too. 
The serious fishers with complicated tackle who sit in com- 
plete absorption watching for a rise ; the little boys with 
bent pin and string who strive to imitate them ; the idlers 
who hang around and merely watch. 

We drove up to the town in ambulance waggons — my first 
experience of that sort of vehicle — drawn by splendid teams 
of mules. Cagayan is such a peaceful-looking village that it 
was hard to realise the stories told us by the American 
officers who were our hosts. The most prominent thing 
about all Philippine towns and villages is the church and 
priest's house, generally adjoining each other, the latter 
known as the convento. In the old days every traveller was 



126 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

j^iven hospitality at this convento, for inns were unknown, 
and it was frequently the school of the district and alto- 
gether the centre of the universe to the natives. The con- 
vento at Cagayan had been appropriated as barracks, after it 
had been severely attacked and captured from the Filipinos 
by the Americans. The town must have suffered as the 
centre of some obstinate fighting, but it does not show the 
same evidence as Iloilo. On one door is a gruecome reminder 
in the shape of a bloody hand-mark, the fingers wide-spread, 
little hasty dabs of blood around. One can almost see the 
rush of the wounded man, the battering with open palms on 
the closed door, the quick rattling of bolts behind, and the 
furtive glance over the shoulder as he slips through the 
narrow opening. 

Cagayan is clustered to form several wide, dusty streets, 
if streets they can be called. The houses stand high, the 
second story being used for the living house. Most of the 
houses are wood, thatched with nipa ,• that of the former 
Spanish Governor being a long white building, with a verandah 
in front, looking out over a small enclosed garden on to the 
village green, or possibly it might be termed the Alameda in 
stately Spanish fashion. This is adorned with a double row 
of picturesque gnarled trees leading up to the church, which 
is sufficiently simple and weatherworn to be thoroughly in 
keeping with the rest of the scene. About 8 o'clock, when 
the seiioras and seiioritas in their fresh cottons and little 
black lace veils are coming out of church, bunching up the 
clean skirts out of the dust, and not without a little pride in 
the frilled white petticoat beneath, or perhaps even a pair of 
coloured stockings, there is a pretty picture framed by the 
dark trunks and foliage of these old trees. The church, 
pax-tly white, with a little yellow tower, a glimpse of depth 
of light and shade and rich colours of stained glass showing 




A FILIPINO VILLAGE STREET. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 127 

through the square open door, makes a fitting background, 
and it were difficult to imagine a more peaceful scene. But 
in the midst of all this rusticity an American army is living. 
Horses and mules are stabled under the shade of these same 
trees. Carts and waggons stand near by, stalwart men in blue 
shirts, khaki breeches and sombreros lounge about, march 
about, swarm in the houses, mount guard at the corners, 
sleep in the shade, stretched on their campaigning cots, and 
generally pervade the whole atmosphere. The Stars and 
Stripes flies from more than one window, and a regimental 
band sends brazen, cheerful, Philistine strains' across the scene. 
We were the first white women to be seen in this out-of- 
the-way spot, and our appearance caused the greatest excite- 
ment and amusement. I must confess that the Filipino garb 
is more suited to the climate than our own. Hitherto, 
from Java, through the Spice Islands, Celebes and Borneo up 
to the Sulu archipelago, the Malays had all worn variations 
of the sarong and hihaya, the latter being a cotton jacket with 
tight sleeves, that of the women frequently reaching almost 
to the knees. The semi-civilised Filipino, however, has adapted 
the dress of his European conquerors, and the usual male attire 
consists of short linen trousers and a linen or muslin shirt 
xcorn outside. As the latter garment is fashioned in every way 
like an ordinary shirt, it gives a suggestion of undress, or of 
an interrupted toilet. The beautiful fine muslins of native 
manufacture are characteristic of the Philippines, There are 
various sorts, all made from the fibre of the cocoanut or of 
bananas ; the favourite shade is a creamy yellow, but blue and 
red checks and bars are introduced, and the muslin can be had 
thick or clear according to taste. I had some blouses made of 
these muslins and they have been much admired. The silk 
muslins known Sispina are exquisite, equal to Paris goods and 
nearly as expensive now, thanks to the rage for them among 



128 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Americans. The prettiest are the wliite and cream in narro^\' 
silky stripes, but the colours are often very delicate and dainty. 
Then there are solid home-woven cottons for mrong.s and 
skirts, so that Filipinos have quite a stock of native manu- 
factures for dress. The women wear the inevitable swrong, 
at least in the southern Philippines. In the north they wear 
a full skirt, over which a piece of black cloth is fastened like 
an apron, only worn at the back instead of the front. Their 
bodices are of muslin, cut low and with wide open sleeves, 
which leave the whole of the arm practical] v bare. These 
sleeves are starched to stand out on either side, and a stiffly 
starched kerchief is worn like a fichu round the shoulders. 
For church-going it is usual for better-class women to weai' a 
bit of black lace or net on the head, in imitation of the 
Spanish mantilla, and to attire themselves entirely in black 
muslin, but the shape is always the same. Well-to-do Filipino 
ladies, all indeed save those who claim a preponderating strain 
of Spanish blood, wear this costume, though the skirt is a 
little more elaborate in cut among the better class and usually 
boasts a funny little train. Of course all who can afford it 
have silk skirts for grand occasions, and these are painted and 
embroidered, while the muslin bodice or camisa is also decorated 
with fine stitching or made of silk muslin. I saw some lovely 
camisas worked with flowers in natural shades, the petals being 
raised and the centres made of gold tinsel or tiny pearls. 
These, however, are expensive toilettes, and we saw none at 
Cagayan Misamis, which is a rustic town and far from rich. 
As soon as a man acquires any sort of position in his native 
place he begins to wear a coat, and the first sign of affluence 
or importance is the black broadcloth suit which he dons on 
Sundays and feast-days. This, with a white shirt-front and 
collar and a black tie, makes him as ugly and unpicturesque 
an object as God's sun ever shone on, and by-and-by, as the 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 129 



heat takes the starch out of his collar and front, he acquires 
a dissipated appearance which is highly comic. 

During our tour among the islands we saw many different 
towns, and some surprised us by their size and the number of 
good houses they contained. One 
provincial town has as many as 
four large churches, two colleges, 
for boys and girls (all Avell built 
of stone), a theatre, made of 
wood but elaborately decorated 
inside to simulate marble, and 
a fine public building. Never- 
theless there is rather a tun)ble- 
down aspect about all Filipino 
toAvns. It is only such buildings 
as I have enumerated that are of 
stone, for the houses are, as a 
rule, built of wood and thatched 
with nipa (palm leaves). The 
walls are made with sliding 
panels, so that they may be 
opened entirely or closed at 
will. In order to keep a house at all cool it is necessary to 
adjust these slides continually in order to keep out the sun 
and admit as much air as possible. The smaller houses are 
mere huts, the sides as well as the roof being of the 
indispensable nipa. Inside, the furniture is extremely scarce. 
On one occasion we were spending the night at a provincial 
town and were offered hospitality by various local magnates. 
I believe it was the vice-mayor who was to have the honour 
of putting up Andrew and myself and another couple. 
When we arrived we were a little taken aback to find a 
square wooden bungalow, with steps outside, this being the 

I 




/Oyndau Clohhes 



130 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

most primitive form, as all better-built houses are entered by 
a sort of courtyard, whence the staircase runs up into the 
middle of the reception-room. We entered, however, and 
found one large room with three tiny ones opening off' — mere 
cupboards and verv stuffy. There was not the smallest 
vestige of furniture, but I believe the family who vacated for 
us had taken their household gods with them. 

By-and-by a few smiling and breathless Filipinos appeared 
and welcomed us with effusive bows. They brought with 
them a small marble-topped pedestal, on which they proceeded 
to place a very minute tin basin, and they assured us that 
chairs and beds would be forthcoming. The obvious difficulty 
of accommodating two married couples in one bare room (the 
cupboards were out of the question) never seemed to occur to 
them, and as explanation was impossible, owing to the limited 
Spanish any of us possessed, we simply fled. The only ex- 
planation we could leave behind was the sentence No 
custombre Americanos, in answer to which they poured out 
a voluble stream, pointing the while to the pedestal and basin 
as much as to say that if these did not tempt us to stop 
nothing would. Finally we spent the night at the alcalde's, 
a very sober, dignified old Filipino, who possessed a large 
house and a regular bevy of women-folk. We never were 
quite clear as to whether they were his daughters or nieces or 
merely neighbours come to see the show, but about ten girls 
constantly hung about, besieging us with questions and 
laughing consumedly because we couldn't understand. The 
house had two large reception-rooms in the centre, one being 
laid out on this occasion with a gorgeous supper, while the 
other contained a piano, chairs and a round table. These 
are practically the only articles of furniture in a Filipino 
sitting-room, but it is usual to have a small shrine, and a sacred 
picture or two. Supper was always a great institution on 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 131 

these occasions, and some of the dishes were not bad, especially 
the fish. It was not unusual, however, to have four or five 
meat courses, and these appeared at the oddest moments, 
just after trifle or before soup. I have experienced real 
Filipino cooking, and never wish to do so again, but at the 
entertainments given us by wealthy Filipinos we seemed to 
get a far-off^ flavour of French cookery, together with a 
distinct attempt to have everything quite European. The 
array of wine-glasses was formidable, but there was no parti- 
cular method in the distribution of the wine. En passant I 
think the question of what to drink is one of the most tire- 
some on a journey like this. Water, unless boiled and filtered 
under one's own eyes, is taboo, and even when evaporated 
water is to be had it is a flat, unrefreshing drink. Aerated 
water is absolutely prohibitive in price in out-of-the-way 
spots, claret is apt to be thin and sour, beer doesn't agree 
with every one, especially in a hot country. Men always seem 
to be able to get along with whisky and water, but even then 
they run a certain risk in the water, and not every one can 
emulate my friend the commercial traveller. The hospitable 
Filipinos always gave us a curious, unearthly beverage which 
they called champagne. It had various flavours, but only 
one effect — a dry and smarting mouth and an aching head 
next morning. I believe they bought it from the heathen 
Chinee, but I do wonder where grew the grape from which 
that subtle poison was distilled. 

The bedroom which we occupied at the alcalle''s was extremely 
large, and had two enormous four-post beds, elaborately carved 
and adorned with valances of lace. There was no mattress 
or bed-clothes, merely a grass mat, with a pillow and "Dutch 
wife " in the whitest of cotton covers. Nothing is cooler or 
more delightful than this sort of bed when one is accustomed 
to the slight hardness. There was a toilet table and a washing- 



132 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

stand, the former evidently a fixture, ])ut the latter, I think, 
imported for our benefit. Wardrobes and chests of drawers 
are never seen in bedrooms, all the clothes of the family 
being kept on shelves in a sort of large cupboard. Sometimes 
the shelves run all round a room which is devoted to this 
purpose and called the wardrobe-room. The lower end of 
our room Avas screened off, and from the sounds which pro- 
ceeded from it 1 gathered that the family who had given 
us their beds were camping out there on mats. It is curious 
to spend the night with only a screen between one and a 
whole Filipino family ; but necessity makes us acquainted 
with strange bedfellows, and we slept soundly as usual. 
Breakfast was always a trying operation. As a rule eggs are 
forthcoming, but neither bread nor butter is good, the latter, 
if to be had at all, being tinned and liquid, and beyond 
eating up scraps left from last nighfs banquet, there is 
no attempt at a breakfast dish. Sometimes the American 
officers entertained us, and then we usually fared well and 
made up for the greasy, over-cooked meals which we had 
consumed as guests of the Filipinos. 

It is difficult to give any idea of the Filipinos and their 
nays without explaining to a certain extent their history, 
and that would unduly prolong this part of my travels. It 
must be understood, howevei', that although conquered and 
Christianised more than three centuries ago they have never 
been given freedom, and the mass of the people have little or 
no education, the consequence being that they have but the 
thinnest veneer of civilisation. Their religion, of which 
much parade is made, is little more to them than superstition 
and pageantry. At one place we saw one of the saints from 
the church, which, in honour of the Americans, had been 
rudely dressed to represent the statue of Liberty in New York 
harbour. Spikes of gilded paper were round its head, and 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 133 

one absurd wooden arm was raised holding a hdtun. This 
figure was regarded with the deepest admiration by all, and 
had been brought eleven miles over rough roads in order to 
decorate the town visited by our party. Next fiesta day it 
would doubtless resume its position as the Blessed Virgin or 
some tutelar saint, and no idea of sacrilege would enter 
any one's head. The same curious lack of appreciation of the 
sacred side of things is shown in funeral rites. A friend of 
ours described the burial of a little girl, the child of her 
servant. The mother came on the morning of the day to 
ask for a holiday for all the household, which was, of course, 
granted. She then borrowed some hangings with which to 
decorate the bier. The child was laid in a coffin, lined 
and trimmed with white and beautifully decorated, and the 
relations put on their best clothes. On the return from the 
burial-ground a feast was held, and music and dancing kept 
up to a late hour. Throughout, although the child had 
been tenderly treated while alive by its parents, who were 
apparently fond of it, there was no sign of mourning or 
lamentation, or, indeed, any appreciation of the solemnity of 
death. I am aware that funeral feasts are common in more 
than one Christian country, but I do not remember to have 
heard of dancing being part of the ceremonies. Pilgrimages 
to shrines situated in various islands are very popular, and 
from all accounts are regarded as peculiarly festive forms of 
pic-nics. The two favourite shrines are the Virgin of Antipolo 
and the Blessed Child of Cebu. We visited the latter, and 
were shown the bmnbino by an old priest, who eagerly 
took the quaint little wooden figure, dark with age, out of 
its wrappings to show to us two heretics. 

Cebu is a specially interesting place, as it was here that 
Magellan, discoverer of the islands, landed after his adventurous 
voyage from Madrid vid the straits which now bear his name. 



134 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

He planted a cross which is said to remain to this day, but as 
it has been entirely cased in wood and furthermore enclosed 
in a sort of cage one cannot feel that one really gazes upon 




the interesting relic. Poor Magellan was killed by the natives 
on a little island near Cebu, but I am afraid he courted his 
fate, for he seems to have adopted a most uncompromising 
attitude towards the Filipinos, who were practically told to 
come and be baptized or take the consequences of fire and 
sword. I do hope no rational historian will ever set to work 
(m that fascinating page of history which deals with early 
Portuguese and Spanish discoveries. I should hate to have 
all the little romantic touches with which they are at present 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 135 

embellished explained away, like Alfred and the cakes, Sir 
Walter Raleigh and the cloak, William Tell and the apple, 
not to mention Dunstan and the devil, Cromwell and the 
bauble, Isaac Newton and the apple, and many other favourites 
now resigned to the lumber-room of fiction. How often have 
these oases in a sandy desert of historic facts helped me in 
that lengthy pilgrimage which began with the Ancient Druids 
and only ended with the Corn Laws ! 

Well, no one can rob me of Magellan, who quarrelled with 
his own king and, though a Portuguese, offered his services to 
Charles of Spain ; who sailed from Spain one August, and 
after tossing about in the Atlantic for months, entered an 
ocean which seemed to him so quiet and smooth that he 
called it the Pacific. I can see the quaint, tall-masted ship, 
with its crew of sun-burnt men and the little band of explorers 
in their rich mediaeval clothes (which must have got extremely 
messy and worn out in so long a voyage). There is Piggafetta 
(delightful name !), an Itahan scribe, destined to write the 
story of the voyage for my future delectation ; Barbosa, the 
second in command, fated, like Magellan, to lose his life at 
the moment when success was nigh. There are many others, 
seated in the chart-room, pouring over unwieldy charts of the 
earth's surface with quaint instruments, or perchance drinking 
out of richly embossed flagons and singing romance songs of 
Old Spain. And when Magellan sighted the Ladrones after 
many months of open, trackless ocean, imagine the intense 
excitement of the moment ! Land ahoy ! and every eye on 
the weather-beaten vessel is fixed on the horizon. At last he 
dropped anchor at Cebu, and the feet of his little band trod 
the sands where now I stand. So mused I, and was wrapped 
in the fascination of the past when an English voice struck 
pleasantly on my ears. 

It is not until one has lived entirely with Americans for 



iS6 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

some time that one appreciates the accents of one's countrymen 
(I mean, of course, the cultured classes ; no one could possibly 
appreciate a Cockney dialect). On this statement I am pre- 
pared to make a stand, and nothing will persuade me to the 
contrary. Americans may speak, as they assure me, better 
English than I ; they may adhere to the primitive pronuncia- 
tion of words ; they may be right in saying " gotten " ; they 
certainly have a wider range of language, and it is quite 
possible that their enunciation is extremely distinct. All 
these facts have been instilled into me by impartial Americans 
who, if they came from New England, sometimes added a 
rider to the effect that they thought the English accent very 
unintelligible ; but even granting all this I must protest that 
American voices make me thoroughly tired. 

Nowhere does the self-assertiveness of the women manifest 
itself more than in the high pitch of their voices. An English 
girl is trained to speak in a low key ; well-modulated tones 
are considered a sign of good breeding (unless one is a very 
great lady indeed, when it is rather chic to shout), and I 
venture to assert that no English drawing-room full of well- 
bred women is like the parrot-house at the Zoo, which is 
exactly the effect produced by a bevy of fair Americans. 

The voice of my countryman therefore broke pleasantly 
through my meditations on the shore at Cebu,and among my 
brightest recollections is the day that followed in his society, 
and that of the tiny English community in that far-off spot. 
The English meal of soup, fish, cutlets and cheese, accompanied 
with light wines (I shall never get accustomed to the American 
habit of iced water), the pleasant siesta afterwards with a pile 
of home papers to read — the sight of Andrew asleep behind 
the Times was too home-like for anything ! — afternoon tea 
and the drive that followed, with our final return to the 
Cachuca laden with gifts. Lovely pearl shells, big baskets of 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 137 

golden mangoes, a box of the delicate \'enus baskets, little 
native curios and besides a whole store of pleasing recollections 
we took back with us, and I wave my grateful thanks across 
the gulf of time and space to our kind entertainers. 

I think one reason for our enjoyment of this pleasant day 
was the quietness and lack of bustle. Too frequently a lack 
of organisation made our visits to shore an alternate rush to 
be in time and a long wait. We were never quite sure at 
what hour we should start or where we should go. When 
we arrived, there was bustle and confusion as to who should go 
in carriages and who should walk. The programme arranged 
for our entertainment fi-equently involved a most uncomfor- 
table amount of exertion, but that was not so trying as the 
impossibility of finding out exactly what was expected of us. 
English people with all their stiffness and prejudice have 
more idea of arranging functions, and the much-abused laws 
of precedence are a real boon on such occasions. 

The go-as-you-please system on which our expedition was 
managed (with a view to avoiding formality) landed me one 
day in about the most perilous adventure of my journey ings. 
It was a hot little town, in a very disturbed district, and on 
our arrival we all drove up in carriages from the shore, a 
distance of about four miles, escorted by a detachment of 
cavalry. Andrew stayed on board the Cachuca as he had 
some writing to finish, and before the morning was over I 
devoutly wished I had stayed too. The chiefs of our party 
were busily engaged in their scientific explorations, and in 
conversing with the commanding officers ; and the rest of us, 
after exploring the church and convento, got very tired and 
bored. We could not go for a long drive, as only the im- 
mediate purlieus of the town were considered safe. There 
was no ice in the place and we had washed down our lunch 
with warm soda-water ; above all, the young officers, who 



138 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

ought to have entertained us, were apparently busily engaged 
in entertainino- each other and had arrived at a somewhat 
iniseemly pitch of joviality. Sadie, Mamie and I made 
desperate inquiries as to how long we w ere to stay, and were 
told that, until the tide rose, the steam-tug from the Cacliuca 
could not fetch us off. There were, however, two young and 
reckless secretaries who worshipped at the shrines of the 
American sisters, and when Sadie asked them scornfully, 
*' Say, can''t you do anythmg ?" They said : " If you will 
come with us we will get you out to the Cacliuca somehow." 
Thereupon they packed us into an antiquated vehicle of 
the landau type, and the younger and more reckless, whom 
I will call Sherman, took his place on the box. Just before 
we started he tumbled down and rushed into a neighbouring 
house where some young officers were quartered, returning 
Avitli something bulky in his pocket. The driver whipped up 
and we rattled off. Half-way through the village we saw 
the young ladies' poppa Avalking along with a green umbrella 
over his head and a specimen-case in his hand. He stopped 
and shouted something, but Sadie and Mamie only kissed 
their hands and remarked, " Poppa seems to be getting 
scared about angel daughters." When we got to the 
outskirts of the town the driver pulled up and intimated 
that he dared go no farther. Sherman thereupon produced 
an enormous cavalry pistol, which he levelled at the head of 
the Filipino, and in a melodramatic voice bade him drive 
on at peril of his life. We all screamed, and inquired 
anxiously : " Is it loaded ?" " I don't know," said Sherman 
reflectively, " I guess it is. I thought it might come in 
handy if we met any insurgents in the woods." 

"- Where did you get it from ? ■" asked the Worm. 

"I borrowed it just now," replied Sherman. "At least, 
the chap was asleep, so I took the loan of it." 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 139 

The Filipino under such compulsion drove on, and soon we 
were on the road to the shore, which wound through some 
proves of bamboo and along; the banks of a river. The sun 
went down in a splendour of gold and crimson, and twilight 
crept on with alarming rapidity. The last bright streaks of 
red were shooting across the sky as we stood on the shore and 
saw the Cachuca riding at anchor about a mile and a half out. 
Between us and her lay, first a stretch of sand thickly strewn 
with shallow pools, and then a bit of sea. We calculated the 
distance with some trepidation, and divided counsels pre- 
vailed. Sadie, Avho still had her arm in a sling as the result 
of an accident, was nervous, and the Worm, who was her 
father's private secretary, began to feel his responsibilities a 
little too thick. But Mamie and the indomitable Sherman 
were determined to go through with the adventure. Appealed 
to for a casting vote I felt obliged to say that I didn't see 
what we could do but go forward. To drive back through 
the darkened Avoods involved unpleasant possibilities from 
lurking insurgents, whose favourite method is to get behind 
a tree and pot their enemies. The only other alternative was 
to sit down on the shore and wait for high tide, about five 
hours hence, when we should become the laughing-stock of 
the whole party. A few natives were prowling about, and 
several of their boats lay on the beach, so Sherman addressed 
them in his best Spanish, which, being uneducated Filipinos, 
they did not understand or appreciate. He conveyed his 
meaning somehow and they began to run the boats out 
towards the sea. We had to cross the intervening strip — 
quite three-quarters of a mile — of wet sand, and we looked 
with regret at our dainty brown shoes. An inspiration came 
to Mamie, and following her example we took off our footgear 
and began to walk in stocking feet. At first it was rather 
nice. The sand was warm and soft and the little pools most 



140 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

refreshing, but before that walk was ended we were over our 
ankles in water, tripping over seaweed, splashing into deep 
holes and slipping on stones. Our petticoats were kilted up 
higher and higher, so that we were thankful for the darkness 
which had descended. From being a white boat on blue water 
the Cachuca had faded into a black boat in a mist of grey, 
and now little twinkling lights began to come out all over 
her. 

At length it was deep enough to launch the prahus, which 
indeed are so shallow as to float in a few inches. They were 
little more than long narrow dug-outs, with a few boards 
fastened across for seats and wide bamboo outriggers on either 
side. I remembered a saying of Andrew's that these are the 
safest of all boats, and comforted Sadie with it as we took 
our seats, but she replied lugubriously that they were all 
right unless one of the bamboos got water-logged, in which 
case they invariably capsized. 

There were two prahus, each requiring two men at least to 
paddle, and five of us. Mamie, Sherman and I got into one, 
Sadie and her faithful Worm into another. I suppose we 
were heavy loads, for the sides of the prahus were almost level 
with the water-line, and a big wave would have washed right 
over VIS. It was rather like going for a sea voyage astride of 
a log. The sea was calm, but the tide was coming in with a 
long low swell, and every now and then as we rose and fell 
the edge of the waves broke into our shallow boats so that 
we were soon sitting with our feet in water. Notwithstanding 
the peril, Mamie and I both felt a certain enjoyment in the 
motion, which was free and buoyant, and only poor Sadie 
with her useless arm kept calling out in terror. Paddling 
slowly we were at last under the lee of the Cachuca^ and 
could see a few people leaning over the side, thinking we were 
natives coming off to sell fruit. Unfortunately we had to go 





A WET WALK. 



THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 141 

round to the farther side of the ship for the companion ladder, 
and there we found the sea roUin^ in and breaking heavily 
ao-ainst her and the ladder. The next few minutes were 
desperately uncomfortable. One wave dashed us high against 
the side of the Cac/mca, but owing to our outriggers not 
near enough to catch hold, the next took us back into a sort 
of hollow where the vessel loomed above us. At last the 
prahus were turned nose on towards the ladder, and the next 
time the waves carried us forward the sailors caught hold of 
a rope and made it fast. By this time all the people on the 
CacJmca were assembled to see us land. The prahics, though 
steadier, were still heaving up and down, and my only recol- 
lection of my own performance is that I raised one leg to 
plant a foot on the ladder, the prahic seemed to sink beneath 
me, and with a jump I landed face downwards, clasping some 
one round the legs. I was afterwards told that I " took off" 
from Sherman's head, and I recollect feeling something which 
I kicked away wildly in my effort to raise my self to the ladder. 

Once on board we were treated to a terrible lecture from 
the captain, who said our exploit had been most foolhardy. 
We replied meekly that we could all swim. " Szvim ! " he 
said. '■'■Sto'im! And so can the sharks, and there are plenty 
of 'em on these coasts.''' 

We had all had the same unpleasant thought, but had not 
liked to mention it to each other, but I can assure my reader 
that it was with a good deal of relief that we eyed each other 
an hour afterwards, when, dry and clean, we sat down to 
dinner. Andrew was serious, but I managed to turn the 
tables on him by pointing out that so little developed were 
his intuitions where I was concerned that, although I was 
in deadly peril only a few hundred yards off, he sat in the 
smoking-room of the Cachuca comfortably reading and with- 
out any misgivings. 



142 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

I must add that, despite the captain's warnings, Sherman 
and the Worm, as soon as they had finished dinner, got back 
into the biggest prahu, and going with the tide and not 
against it paddled back to shore, found the Filipino coachman 
and his carriage j ust where they had left him (they had for- 
gotten to give any directions and under such circumstances a 
Filipino merely sits still) and returned to the town, where 
they found Poppa still mildly anxious about "angel daughters "" 
and reassured him. To this day he believes that we all went 
back in the jolly-boat of the CacJiuca. 



CHAPTER XI 

SOME PROYINCIAL TOWNS AND MANILA 

Where Eizal lived — A village ischool— Scenery and sunsets — 
A wrecked town— Manila at last— A leisurely arrival— A 
land of Mahana— In search of a bed— Hotels and hotel-keepers 
— American philosophy— De mortuis — On the Lwietta— 'New 
wine in old bottles — ^We leave for Japan 

APITAN in Mindanao is one of the places 
we visited, and as a thoroughly typical 
Filipino village it cannot be passed over 
without a brief description. Landing from 
the cutter, we were received of course by a 
crowd of people with a band and a deputation 
of black-clothed gentlemen. We marched 
along through a grove of palms till the village grew before 
our eyes into a picturesque vista of brown huts, every 
window and door filled with dark eyes and hair and much 
glinting of red and yellow-tinted muslin. At the end of the 
village street, or rather the corner where it takes a turn to 
avoid a great lump of hill, we saw the faint blue of mountains ; 
look back and the blue sea lies sparkling in the sunlight. 
Just across that bit of blue water, a little way from the 
village, among trees and shrubs, lay the httle house where 
Rizal, patriot and martyr, hved in exile for four years, earning 




144 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

the aff'ection of the villagers by his gratuitous ministrations 
to the sick. 

We went to see the village girls' school, which is a long, 
low room on the second floor, whitewashed and rudely decorated 
at one end with a small shrine. The little o-irls sat in rows 




at their desks, their small brown faces and twinkling dark 
eyes turned eagerly towards us, their clothes all clean and 
freshly starched. The tiny ones spread out behind till they 
were sitting on the bare polished floor — still as mice. Two 
native sisters, looking like brown dolls dressed up as miniature 
sceicrs de chm"ite, with black robes and white brow and chin- 
cloths, stood sentinel, while the American soldier-teacher, 
who for some months had been striving to instil a knowledge 
of the English language and arithmetic into the sleek brown 
heads, stood in front and called on one damsel after another 
to translate alternately in Spanish and English the stereotyped 
remarks about uncles, nephews, gardens, wives, pens, and ink. 
Then dusky Emilia, solemnly confronting a sum on the 



SOME PROVINCIAL TOWNS 145 

blackboard, assured us that 1x1 = 2; and little brown 
Mercedes replied in absolutely expressionless tones to certain 
questions: "One books, two books, tree books." Coming 
out suddenly, we almost tumbled over a swarm of women and 
children sitting on the steps and peering through the crevices 
of the door to see how their unfortunate — but exalted— play- 
mates were acquitting themselves. 

The people of this wee town look sleek and comfortable, 
though they are poor, and have a cheerful expression which 
recalls the Javanese. They have been at peace and have not 
suffered from the evils of the insurrection. 

A pleasant breeze, we were told, plays constantly through 
this favoured spot. Good spring water is to be had, and 
altogether a pleasanter little place would be hard to find. 
The huge barn-like church was full of gaudy, tawdry images, 
but there was a sense of dignity and proportion about the 
high altar and reredos. Altogether, Dapitan remains as a 
pleasing memory, especially as, owing to the poverty of the 
people, we did not have to sit through a banquet. 

The scenery on the way northwards to Manila, especially 
along the coast of Mindoro, is beautiful and romantic, and is 
truthfully said to resemble and even excel that of the inland 
sea of Japan. The tiny islands dotted all round the larger 
ones afford constant changes of coast-line and are richly 
wooded to the water's edge. Here one revels in the gorgeous 
sights of the setting sun, which transcend those to be seen in 
Italy or the Mediterranean, and which justly earn for the 
Philippines the title of the "Land of Sunsets." 

After Manila the most important town of the Philippines 
is Iloilo, which lies on the southern shore of the island of 
Panay on a narrow spit of land, with a blue range of hills in 
the background, and is bounded either side by the bluest of 
water. Across a very narrow strait lies the island of Negros 

K 



146 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

-with its broken coast. This beautiful situation, combined 
with a s'ood cHmate, should make Iloilo one of the show 
:spots of the world ; but alas ! the Spanish town, once full of 
grave grey houses with stone patios and r^/a-guarded ^\•indows, 
is destroyed. On the day that the Americans entered Iloilo 
a hundred flames fed by kerosene shot up from the various 
quarters of the town. Filipinos, who had nothing to lose by 
the conflagration, set fire to all the houses of any size or 
quality. Most of the Spaniards had already left, and only 
one or two were successful in preventing the destruction of 
their property. The town was gutted before the Americans 
reached it, and the hisurrectos had looted it, assisted by a 
number of Chinese. The latter were driven out of the houses 
by American soldiers, but a significant fact proves that they 
did not go empty-handed. A street of Chinese shops has 
since sprung up, the owners being men who were in the poorest 
circumstances before the occupation of Iloilo. As regards 
the looting by FiHpinos, American officers there told us that 
in every case where a lieutenant or captain was killed at the 
head of insurrectos, his nockets were found to be stuffed with 
rings, jewels, necklaces, and other valuables. 

Iloilo is a wreck. Everywhere stand the gutted walls of 
bouses, which cannot even be used as foundations for new 
buildings, for fire has crumbled the lime with which they were 
cemented. Some have been untidily roofed over and made 
into shops, while on every side hideous corrugated iron rears 
itself in unsightly " saloons," or " ice-cream restaurants," or 
warehouses. Rude shanties bear flaming signs advertising 
the wares they sell, and bits of canvas flap in front of them 
as poor substitutes for awnings. A sort of public garden 
filled Avith stunted palms faces the cathedral, which was 
crowded on the occasion of our visit, as it Avas Palm Sunday. 
The cathedral is taAvdry and tumbledown. The ceiling, in 



SOME PROVINCIAL TOWNS 147 

imitation fresco, is peeling off; the wooden, painted pillars 
are askew ; and in places the absence of paint has been con- 
cealed with tinfoil to simulate silver. The congreffation was 
quiet and apparently attentive, though I fear they understand 
nothing of the service. The Church keeps them in thrall, 
much as the Roman emperors maintained their popularity, 




by providing innumerable fiestas. These are opportunities 
beloved by the Filipino, for on a fiesta he does not work (or 
did not, under Spanish rule). He attires himself in his best 
white muslin shirt, daintily embroidered down the front ; his 
women-folk wear their finest muslins, with wonderful stitchery 
on sleeves and kerchief, and bright coloured skirts. After the 
service he can spend the day as he loves — a cock-fight in the 
afternoon, music and gambling in the evening. The Filipinos 
speak openly their contempt of the priests, but a sort of 
superstition holds them fast, and they will give their last dollar 
to the Church if it be required of them. As a matter of fact, 
giving his last dollar to any one is not a severe test to the 
Filipino. He takes no thought for the morrow and is not at 
all oppressed with the cares of this world; consequently an 
empty treasury is an affair too common to be at all alarminif 



148 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

We heard two good stories of Filipino insurgents. Some 
little time ago a band of fifteen insurgents announced their 
intention of surrendering to General Blank, being encamped 
at a short distance from Iloilo. They asked, however, for a 
week's grace, giving some excuse or other. This was granted, 
and on the appointed day the surrendering party marched 
down with a band playing at their head, each in a brand-new 
uniform, for the making of which the week's delay had been 
utilised. Behind them came a mule, laden with rice and 
ammunition, and the whole made a most imposing co7'tege. 
There is no doubt that the splendour of their appearance 
greatly compensated the vain Filipinos for their defeat. 
Another yarn is to the effect that a Filipino leader in the 
island of Panay, being heavily in debt, offered to surrender 
to the Americans if they would put up the sum of 5000 
dollars (Mex.) to clear off his little liabilities. 

Rent and service have gone up in price in Iloilo since the 
Americans came — 100 and even 300 per cent, in some cases. 
It is hard to get houses, all that are built being wooden 
bungalows. 

Thus, from place to place, we made our way northwards, 
until one fine day we entered the bay which has become 
famous in connection with the name of Dewey. 

The usual way to reach Manila is from Hongkong and the 
crossing is generally bad, while there is no particularly good 
steamer communication. The approach to Manila is not at 
all picturesque. The bay is very large, and when we arrived 
was dotted here and there with American ships, men-o'-war, 
launches, and cutters. We anchored some way out, but 
could see the town of Manila lying spread out on the shore, 
low and uninteresting, the line only broken by the spires of 
St. Sebastian. A number of launches overhauled us, and a 
great deal of red tape had to be gone through. A poll-tax 



SOME PROVINCIAL TOWNS 149 

of five dollars would have been charged on our tickets had 
we been ordinary passengers ; as it was, we were numbered and 
inspected, and had our luggage examined, and signed papers, 
and were finally free to make our departure on a launch run 
by the " Travellers' Baggage Co." The charge for transfer 
seemed extortionate. We steamed up the river or channel to 
the Customs Wharf, passing a number of native boats, large 
covered junks, and also some depot ships full of American 
soldiers. We were assured that a 'bus from the Oriente, the 
principal hotel, would shortly arrive to convey us to that 
hostelry, so we sat ourselves down outside the T.B. office and 
waited. Our American friends, after cordial farewells, drove 
off in their own carriages, but one or two who had, like 
ourselves, no homes in Manila, decided to walk up to the 
hotel, and we saw them depart with complacence, convinced 
that the 'bus would soon pick us up and that we should be 
first in the field. We sat and watched the Filipinos in their 
Sunday clothes as they strolled along the wharf. The 
men in white trousers and vest and quaint muslin shirts, 
absolutely transparent, worn, of course, hanging loose ; the 
women in muslin jackets with wide open sleeves, a kerchief 
worn like a fichu, full cotton skirts and tight overskirts of 
black, like black aprons worn at the back instead of the 
front — you know already what they look like, but I have not 
mentioned hitherto their partiality for wearing the hair 
unbraided, flowing over the shoulders. 

If their costume were limp and soft it might be becoming, 
but much starch is evidently de rigueur, and the muslin sleeves 
stick out on either side, the kerchief humps up on the 
shoulders, the stiff skirt is confined by the black apron only 
to bunch out at the heels or in front, and to crown ail, the 
women walk with a peculiar ungainly shuffle begotten of 
their heelless shoes. All these things I took note of as we 



150 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

sat on the wharf. I thought at first that there was not 
a good-looking wonifin in Manila. Their faces are small, 
lean, prominent as to cheek-bones, and with protruding 
though often thin lips. Brown skin, small brown or black 
eyes, lank black hair, thin angular arms, only too evident 
under the muslin, and a general air of puny under-develop- 
ment make an ungracious setting for their little airs and 
graces, of which they seem full. We saw Filipino ladies 
driving, later in the day, and their costume was practically 
the same, except that it was made of finer material, and 
as Manila is to the Philippines what Paris is to us, many of 
the carriage costumes were beautiful and costly. I saw a 
transparent blue muslin, exquisitely embroidered with tiny 
pearls. The wearer had a blue ribbon round her throat and 
a rosette mixed with pearls in her hair, and out of this 
dainty finery looked a wizened little brown face, carefully 
whitened with powder, the hair taken back from the fore- 
head, much waved and dressed high. 

We sat on the wharf and watched the Filipinos, and their 
American conquerors in dusty khaki, or crumpled white suits, 
lounging about, or passing to and fro. It was interesting, 
but we were just then anxious to go to the hotel. Messengers 
were despatched, telephones used, and we were assured that 
the 'bus must be here directly. We sat still and reflected 
that once more we were in the land of mariana. 

A launch came in bearing a lot of officers and ladies, 
evidently after a pleasure jaunt. They disembarked, and 
were packed into carriages with much rustling of silken 
skirts and frou-frou of lace, laughter, exclamations, and 
protestations: "We've had a real good time, Major'" — 
and " Thank you vnrry much. Colonel." 

We felt dusty, hot and badly dressed, and we protested 
and were soothed. Then an official of sorts in a red cap 



SOME PROVINCIAL TOWNS 151 



came along and said the 'bus had broken down, but he would 
telephone for a carriage ; but we had sat there long enough. 
We got up and w^alked, and finally catching a caramatta we 
climbed in and drove, and so reached the Oriente some 
two hours later than 
our fellow passen- ^U.,, 

gers, who were read- 
ing the papers in 
the hall when we 
arrived, and looked 
at us with the cu- 
rious air of intol- 
erance usual ly as- 
sumed by dwellers 
in hotels towards 
new arrivals. 

We interviewed 
the clerk, who as- 
signed us a room 
for which we were to 
pay 7 dollars each 
— 28,9. It was a 
small single room with a small single bed. We could take it or 
leave it : it was all they had. We left it. I would almost 
rather have slept in the street, so infuriated was I after my 
first encounter with an Amei-ican hotel clerk. 

After some delay we got a little box on wheels and rattled 
away in search of other quarters. Carriages, be it here noted ^ 
are hard to hire in Manila, most people keeping their own> 
Every one drives, so the demand is frequently larger than the 
supply. Nevertheless, if you walk along and keep a look-out 
you can frequently pick up a caramatta — if you don't want 
one for another hour or two, send a messenger for it. The 




152 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

earamatta is a two-wheeled cart, with a cover ; there is room 
for two FiHpinos inside, or for one European and a half. 
The driver sits on a little perch just in front, and the only 
way in is to climb over the wheel. The caramatta we hired 
on this occasion was not very sure of its wheels, and as we 
joggled and jolted along over the bad roads and cobble-stone 
paved streets the driver eyed them nervously. Every now 
and then came a sickening heave and wrench as we bumped 
into a hole, and our heads were banged first against the sides 
of the cover and then against each other. Luckily the wheels 
held on until we had passed along some Spanish-looking 
streets — white and grey houses with the inevitable rejas — 
through a low arched opening in a thick wall, which looks 
much older than it is, and into the walled city. I was too 
much engaged with holding my head on and watching the 
wheels to notice much of the city on this occasion, and soon 
we arrived at the Blank Hotel, where we passed through a 
courtyard up broad stone stairs into a long verandah-like 
room, where people were tiffining. Here (after a period 
during which we had just made up our minds that it wasn't 
really bad and might be fairly comfortable) a polite 
Spaniard came with the news that they were full up, and 
advised us to go to the Hotel Dash, which we afterwards 
ascertained to be an annexe of this place. 

The Hotel Dash, \\ here we ultimately obtained a large and 
dirty room, deserves description. A corner house of forbid- 
ding aspect, its exterior is covered with grey plaster, peeling 
off in places, and a large, badly lettered board announces 
that here is everything the traveller can desire, including 
horse, carriages and coachmen of style. 

The lower or ground floor is apparently given up to stables, 
the second displays from outside a collection of dilapidated 
green Venetians, framed in balconies of wood roughly plastered 



SOME PROVINCIAL TOA¥NS 153 




with white. We enter a badly paved court, with a vista of 
stables at the end, and see on the right a broad stone stair- 
case, very dirty, at the foot of which a Filipino lady is comb- 
ing her hair. We mount the stairs and find ourselves in a 
long gallery, with windows at one side and doors at the other, 
leading into the apartments. At the end of the gallery is a 
table, and at this table sits a small, impassive man with a 
strongly marked 
Spanish face. He 
seldom seems to 
speak or move or in- 
deed do anvthins; ex- 
cept make up bills — 
incorrectly. This he 
does with great dili- 
gence, and, contrary 
to the habits of hotel-keepers, he usually tots them up to his 
own disadvantage ! Occasionally his calm is broken, as the 
telephone-bell rings violently, and he flies across the room to 
answer it. We had occasion more than once to send 
messages through this telephone, but nothing ever came of 
them, so we suspect it is merely a " make see," to give the 
little man something to do in the intervals of arithmetic. 

When we arrived tiffin was in progress, so, after a shud- 
dering glance round our room, which contained as little 
furniture as possible — two beds, two tables, two chairs, two 
hat-stands, and a broken washing-table with tin basin and 
jug — we went to tiffin. The menu was elaborate — there 
were twelve items exclusive of dessert and coffee, but I can't 
remember eating anything except some very stale bread and 
cheese. It was the same at dinner — we dined off tomatoes. 
The waiters were Filipinos who dwindled down from a fair- 
.sized boy of about five foot to a little creature of some two 



1,54 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

foot nothing. It was like being waited on by imps in a 
pantomime. The system of waiting was also unique. One 
asked for something, and after explaining for several minutes 
the bov appeared to understand, pointed to something quite 
different, ^\as ct)rrected, assented, rushed away — and never 
came back. In the course of half an hour he emerged 
bearing ice or coffee for the lady next one, and so on 
ad iiifinituvi. 

A number of American officers and several ladies lived at 
this delectable place, and all complained, but on the whole 
took things very placidly. One pretty lady of the Dana 
Gibson pet type said she had been there five months, and 
despite the fact that the whole place was filthy, that there 
was hardly any food, and no attendance to speak of she said 
she was having a " real good time."" A drive now and then, 
some riding, dining out or picnics seem to be about all 
the distractions possible, and the dirt and squalor of the 
place would have made it unbearable to most Englishwomen. 
I can only conclude that Americans have more philosophy, 
and that thev are better able to dispense with the home 
comforts which an Englishwoman finds indispensable and 
introduces into the most unpromising surroundings. One of 
the aggravations of the Hotel Dash was the impossibility of 
getting hold of any one between meals. There are no bells, 
so you have to open your door and clap hands or yell. A 
waiter at the end of the room looks up and shakes his head, 
after a time he calls to some one else, and perhaps, at last, 
a boy comes shuffling along in a dirty singlet full of holes 
and without a coat. You ask for tea or matches or anything 
else. He disappears, and is never seen again. 

While on the subject of this hotel, other disadvantages to 
residence in Manila may be noted. Provisions are very 
dear — imported things on account of the protection afforded 




A CORNER IN OLD MANILA. 



SOME PROAaNCIAL TOWNS 155 

by America to her own products ; and native produce, such 
as fowls, vegetables and fruit because of the unusual demand 
and also the lavishness of American expenditure. The roads 
are bad for driving, though attempts are being made to 
improve them ; nevertheless, it is too hot to walk (and also 
distances are too great, unless a man lives actually over his 
office), so that every one must keep a carriage. The expense 
of this is aggravated by the dearness of service. Servants are 
almost unprocurable, except at absurdly high wages. If they 
are clever, they are not trustworthy, but as a rule they are 
very dull and extremely lazy. They have no idea whatever 
of honesty, and require to be told the same thing day after 
day. 

All these drawbacks make Manila a difficult place to realise 
English ideas of comfort in, and living is very expensive. 
The Americans seem to regard the whole aifair as a pic-nic, 
and put up with discomforts in the philosophic spirit with 
which one picks spiders out of one's butter at alfresco meals. 
They are also accustomed to long prices, and do not feel any 
emotion when asked to pay 1*. for a glass of lemonade. 
Their incomes, it is to be presumed, are calculated on a basis 
to match the expense of living under such circumstances, 
whereas the unfortunate English merchants or officials have 
the same as when food and lodging and service were all 
cheap. 

There are not many sights in Manila : the most interesting 
are the churches, of which there are over two hundred in the 
town itself, and the cemetery, which is certainly unique. 
Here the relatives of the " corp ■"■ rent a sort of hole in a 
semicircular wall, into which they put the coffin, sealing it 
up with a square stone on which are inscribed the names and 
virtues of deceased, and perhaps an appropriate bas-relief of 
angels weeping over urns. The grave is, however, onlv 



156 TA¥0 ON THEIR TRAVELS 

leased for five years, at the end of which time, unless a 
further sum is paid, the bones are thrown out on to a heap 
at the back of the cemetery ! 

xVfter a visit to this gruesome place we were glad to have 
a drive on the Lunetta, the Bois de Boulogne or the Rotten 




Row of Manila. This is an open space on the seashore, with 
grass enclosures and a few trees surrounded by a well-made 
drive. A band-stand has been erected, little chairs stand 
around it, and as a pleasant breeze blows in from the sea one 
listens on the one hand to airs from Rohm Hood and on the other 
to the musical plash of the waves. Smart American ladies 
in decollete dresses of muslin — and minus hats — drive round and 
round, and we have a glimpse of Sadie and Mamie surrounded 
by a bevy of young officers. Then in the cool of the evening 
we drive home through dusky palm-shaded roads, and as the 
kindness of English friends has rescued us from the Hotel 



SOME PROVINCIAL TOWNS 157 

Dash, we are assured of a good dinner and pleasant company, 
and vote Manila by no means a bad place. There are two 
towns of Manila. First, the ancient walled city, which con- 
tains the finest churches, quaint tall Spanish houses, and 
narrow streets which transport one at once to the " Penin- 
sula." This was the nucleus of the town, contains the 
Government building and is surrounded, as its name denotes, 
by a thick wall with picturesque gates. Outside is a 
straggling untidy town, with roughly paved streets, now 
narrow, now broad, winding and twisting, presenting every 
variety of architecture from the ugly imposing shop to the 
wooden shanty. The United States is leavening the whole 
lump with the spirit of utilitarianism and progress, and 
edifices which were primarily designed as small and dirty 
drinking-shops, where the lean and picturesque Spaniard 
could moodily sip his thin red-wine, are transmogrified by 
large placards and a liberal supply of paint into " Boot- 
blacking parlours," " Ice-cream saloons," or " Iced beer bars." 
The streets swarm with every kind of vehicle, from crazy 
little caramattas to four-mule teams and heavy waggons. 
Slouch hats and khaki, white duck and Panama straw, cloth 
and muslin are mingled in the motley crowd that throngs the 
street, and Manila, from being the home of repose and dignity, 
has become a veritable bee-hive, and with a most unusually 
mixed swarm ! 

It is a noisy hive, too, for besides the rattle of heavy 
vehicles over stony streets and many kindred sounds, there is 
an eternal noise of bands ; of instruments being practised and 
of airs being whistled. Filipinos are musical, can pick up an 
air directly and play it on a home-made instrument, and 
every village has a band, sometimes a good one. 

Through the kindness of our American friends we were 
enabled to continue our journey to the next point in our 



158 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

itinerary, Japan, as a transport was leaving for Nagasaki on 
a convenient date. Nothing seemed more surprising to us 
than the obliging ways of the military in respect to transport, 
for, this being a cheap means of locomotion, American ladies 
used frequently to avail themselves of such opportunities 
and spend a few weeks in Japan. I believe that this con- 
venient method of locomotion has been somewhat abused, 
and that the military authorities are now getting what one 
lady, whose application for a return ticket had been refused, 
described as " real mean."" There are lots of things and 
people I want to tell about, but Andrew is nudging me and 
(metaphorically) saying, " Look at the clock." Adieu, Manila 
(Adios, it should be, of course). Locked in by hills, low 
lying, without shade, you are hot and feverish, even the night 
brings scarcely a cool breath. However, I wrote a good deal 
about you while sitting in a bath with an iced drink beside 
me, so that I trust my views have not been tinged by any 
feeling of physical discomfort. Had our visit been in winter 
we should have suffered less from heat ; had it , been 
midsummer we should have reaUsed the meaning of a " rainy 
season." 




AN IMPROVISED FILIPINO BAND. 



CHAPTER XII 



A PLAYGROUND AND ITS WORKERS 



Dolls'-house land — English as she is spoke — Kioto and its 
temples — A feast of colour — Gold with a difference — Country 
cousins - Of children and lovers — Of religion — Madame 
Chrysantheme — Women who work and are happy — A 
Japanese bslle — An unwilling bridegroom 

HEN people ask me " What 
is Japan like?" (as though 
one could find a simile at 
once and say : " Like an 
oyster, or a turnip ! ") I 
always tell them it is the 
willow-pattern plate, only 
more so. When we first 
steamed into Nagasaki har- 
bour I had great difficulty not to scream with delight as I 
recognised the little hills with dark green tufts, the pagodas, 
funny boats and many other things with which I had been 
familiar since childhood. Again, Japanese children are 
exactly like the dolls we know so well, and I never could help 
laughing at the sight of a troop of these funny little people 
with their gay garments, fringes of thick black hair and 
almond-shaped eyes, pattering along to school on their tiny 
wooden clogs with large paper umbrellas firmly clasped in 




160 TA¥0 ON THEIR TRAVELS 

their hands. They always looked to me as though they 
ought to be put in cardboard boxes and stood on a shelf in 
the Lowther Arcade ! 

Nagasaki as a whole is pretty, despite its cosmopolitan air, 
but the narrow crowded streets are dirty and unpicturesque, 
the shops being arranged, generally, in European style and 
displaying a terrible collection of embroidered kimonos and 
screens, photographs and frames ; every kind of decorative 
art from poker-work to carved tortoise-shell applied indis- 
criminately to all sorts of (theoretically) useful articles. 

Some of the signs over Japanese English-speaking shops 
struck me as peculiarly felicitous. The following are from 
Kobe : K. Watanake, washier ; Nashimura, tailor and woolen 
occupation ; Yamashata, clother and outpitter. In our hotel 
two notices adorned the bedroom wall. One began " Meals 
time,"" the other stated that " Dogs on no considerations is 
admitted." 

Perhaps one of the most interesting places in Japan is 
the old capital, Kioto, a typical city because, although it is 
still thoroughly Japanese, it is quickened with the modern 
spirit of progress. Kioto lies in a great valley walled by the 
everlasting hills. Japan is made up of such hills and valleys, 
the former covered with the greenest foliage, through which 
gleam occasionally the patches of white sandstone which give 
them the dappled appearance so characteristic. The towns 
and villages cluster at the foot of these hills, and swarm half 
way up their sides. Steep streets end in flights of stone steps, 
leading — through square stone arches, known as torii — to 
temples with curly roofs, half hidden in the soft green of 
pities. Temples are legion in Kioto, and of these the largest 
and most beautiful is known as Neshi Hongwanji, or the 
Eastern Hongwanji. This is the shrine of a sect whose con- 
verts are perhaps the richest and most numerous in Japan 



PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 161 

There are eastern and western branches of the sect in Kioto, 
and people come from great distances to worship in their 
lovely temples. 

Buddhist temples have so many things in common with 
Roman Catholic cathedrals, that one is sometimes quite 




startled. The monasteries are usually adjoining, and in the 
case of the Eastern Hongwanji we enter first that portion 
used as a reception or audience hall. The whole of the 
temple buildings are enclosed in a large compound, entrance 
to which is through one or more huge gates, resembling the 
lych-gates of our own country both in position and structure, 
and usually built with massive roofs. A very beautiful gate 
leading to this temple was the legacy of General Taigo, in 
whose family it had been for ages. It is at least 300 years 
old, but the carving is perfect, and the metal-work, though 
tarnished, is not defaced. These gateways have elaborately 
carved side-posts, heavy with lacquered and engraved brass, 



162 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

supporting a perfect labyrinth of carving in relief. The 
centre of this one has a peacock with outspread tail, and the 
same bird mingles with twisted foliage on either side. Heavy 
wooden joists and beams support the pointed roof, whose 
lines curve up with a fantastic decoration at each corner. 
These beautiful curves meet the eye on every side ; there are 
no awkward angles, stiff perpendiculars or rigid horizontals. 
The very trees seem to have been trained in a school of 
deportment and fling their gnarled limbs picturesquely across 
the scene, completing the composition, accentuating some 
quaint curve or softening a too pronounced outline. 

Across the big compound we go to the dwelling-house of 
the priests, passing a huge lotus-bud fountain, which sends a 
spray of silver water high in the air. Up a number of polished 
wood stairs which run all the length of the building, and 
then in our stocking feet we step on to a platform of wood 
which shines like looking-glass. The floor level is raised still 
another half-foot, and this is covered with creamy matting. 
The walls are all sliding panels, and on the front are merely 
windows of white frosted glass. We step into a big dim 
room, absolutely devoid of furniture, and in a minute we are 
in an atmosphere of exquisite colour. The walls are all gold, 
not bright and garish, but — ^in the dim light^ — subdued, 
glowing, full of gradations of tone. The creamy matting 
on the floor, the dull gold walls, and the lustrous black 
lacquer of the dividing lines of the panels and of the raised 
dais at the end of the room — these make a colour-scheme 
impossible in a western chamber, but more than beautiful 
here, where it has its essential accompaniments of space, 
emptiness, and mellow light. 

But the great beauty of the room lies in the paintings with 
which the walls are decorated, and these also were the property 
of General Taigo and have seen even more than three centuries. 



PLAYGHOUND AND WORKERS 163 

The gold is faded in places and the paper scratched, but the 
whole effect is as harmonious as when it was first painted. 

All across one side of the room is flung a great pine- 
branch, with heavy masses of foliage, drooping at one end 




till it half crosses a line of distant hills, and foreground water 
Birds roost on this mighty branch, and a flying trail of them 
is the only decoration of the east panel, where the pine needles 
and twigs have tapered off' into fine tracery. In the first 
panel great white storks are grouped amid masses of chrys- 
anthemums, and across the whole picture, with a daring 
disregard for Nature, drift great clouds of gold. In the 
centre panels, where the foliage is thickest and birds arie 
twittering in the boughs, some branches of cherry-blossom 



164 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

are introduced, and the colouring is a symphony in gold, 
green, and faded pink. The huge picture which occupies the 
end of the room is divided into three panels, and represents a 
Chinese goddess seated in a shrine receiving the visits of 
some saints. The group of seated figures is in the right-hand 
corner, and is represented as occupying a sort of temple with 
the familiar curved roofs and approaching steps, all drawn in 
terrible perspective which makes them stand on their sides. 
A long teri'ace leads right across the picture ; the golden 
background is broken by nothing save one crooked bough ; 
and on the left is another group of masterly drawing, the 
saints, with queer old wrinkled faces poked forward and 
flowing garments curling round their feet, advancing to pay 
their devoirs. The continuation panel shows a still more 
unsafe mass of masonry — the outer keep of the temple, and 
attendant guards. All this was painted by a celebrated 
Japanese artist from Chinese designs, at the time, centuries 
ago, when China still dominated Japan in affairs of art. 
Other golden walls have their panels simply but effectively 
decorated with a few slender shafts of bamboo and a cluster 
of their pointed green leaves, all painted in flat colour and 
outlined with black. Here and there a stork is represented, 
the touch of silver-white showing up the green stems of 
bamboo. 

Other rooms had this bamboo pattern on the unstained 
wood, the design a little raised, having been marked out and 
left when the wood was planed down, the raised part then 
stained or painted a rich brown. In others huge and rather 
unlifelike pictures of tigers decorated the wooden panels, and 
everywhere the same space and emptiness prevailed. 

This businesslike monastery has a large office where priests 
sit on the floor behind wooden gratings to receive and duly 
record the gifts of the faithful. The latter are seen trotting 



PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 165 

away with paper envelopes containing the charms presented 
as a reward for their contributions. The gifts are in kind as 
well as cash, and great sacks of rice are piled on the steps 
awaiting storage. A considerable part of the revenue is 
collected in the temple, where the worshipper, when he leaves, 
throws a fractional coin on the ground. These are collected 
in a scoop by an attendant priest and thrown, jingling, into 
a huge money-box, and despite the small value of the indi- 
vidual coins, they aggregate, in certain months and in large 
temples, from fifty to sixty yen a day, or from ^^5 to £Q. 

The temple of the Neshi Hongwanji, like many others, 
has two distinguishing features— the large wide empty space 
with massive pillars of polished wood that form its main 
building, and the line of shiny lacquer and blazing gold 
which runs along one side, and forms the setting for a golden 
altar and many shrines of Buddha. This portion of the 
temple is raised a step and railed off. The central shrine 
exactly resembles a High Altar, with lighted candles either 
side, flowers, and a figure of Buddha with a nimbus revealed 
by opening doors. Everything is gold or lustrous black, and 
a sort of canopy depends from the ceiling at the point where 
the chancel (as we should call it) begins. This is exquisitely 
carved, the work being pierced, so that a heavy tracery of 
o-old stretches right across and breaks the severe lines of the 
pillars. 

So much gold sounds like Miss Kilmansegg— but it is gold 
with a difference. The beautiful quality and finish of the 
work, the designs alternately rich and delicate, and above all 
the sober colouring of the wooden pillars and roofs and the 
soft cream of the floor, redeem this plethora of gilding from 
all vulgarity and make it truly a joy for ever. 

Only those who have seen can form any idea of the pictu- 
resque and romantic charm which hangs round Japanese 



166 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



temples, and although modelled on similar lines each one has 
some distinguishing feature. The magnificent shrines we 
have described are in the midst of the busy town, but all 
round the hills which shelter Kioto, runs a belt of temples, 
hanging on the sides of rugged rocks — perched on tiny pro- 

montories — nestling 
among seas of green. 

In one of these we 
remember best the long- 
winding stone path, Avith 
frequent steps, which led 
us, through groves stud- 
ded with gay, red Tori'i^ 
~ lanterns and little shrines, 
to the broad open space 
before the temple. That 
lovely gi'ey path flecked 
with the shadow of danc- 
ing leaves, and here and 
there cut strongly with the crisp shade of the square arch, is 
thronged with people. Many are country folk on a pilgrimage. 
Two healthy, sturdy young women, with white handkerchiefs 
tied over their heads, shading their broad red faces, stand to 
stare at us with good-natured smiles and twinkling black 
eyes. They are themselves the objects of remarks from some 
dainty little women in grey kimonos, whose soft folds wrap 
round the ankles and give only occasional glimpses of little 
white-stockinged feet on high clogs. The country-cousins"' 
dark bluejackets, tied round the waist, are tucked into overalls, 
tight at the ankles, so that the women look from behind like 
coolies. Their big heavy babies peep over their shoulders, 
and they are accompanied by a wrinkled old man who 
marshals them in front of him. This little family has 




PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 167 




tramped miles on the annual pilgrimage to some famous 
temple. Each village collects a fund for this purpose, and 
the pilgrims are selected from each family, the parties being 
of men, women, and children indiscriminately, but each under 
the headship of a vil- iHirdfii 1 

lage elder. Special ^^,^^<r^ 

terms ai'e made for ^=si='~'^ v ,|i 

them everywhere, and '"^ ^ ^Jj -^'^i^'IIWt.c M 
the one to arrive first ' /-^"-^jj 
at a town hangs his ' il'W^ 
big bowl-shaped hat 
on a stick out of a 
window at the tea- 
house he has chosen, 
as a guide to his fel- 
loM's. A very favourite 
reason for pilgrimage 
is connected with the 
rule that after death 
a Buddhist must 
have his head entirely 
shaved. If during life 
he has made a pilgrim- 
age to a certain temple, paid a fee, and undergone a mock 
shaving at the hands of a priest, this posthumous ceremony 
can be omitted, and many thousands avail themselves of this. 
The priest merely takes the razor and makes a few passes 
over the head — not a hair is touched. 

One of the loveliest of temples, the Kiomidzu at Kioto, is 
famous for its situation. One side hangs on innumerable 
piles over a ravine, which is filled in spring ^\'ith cherry- 
blossom. A little brook patters through this ravine, and is 
crossed by fairy bridges of bamboo ; a tiny path ^inds 




168 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

thread-like up the side to other temples, whose roofs are seen 
half buried in green. The temple itself is surrounded with 
shrines. One is dedicated to little children who have died, 
and A\ho, in the pathetic Japanese story, are kept busy on 
the banks of a shining river piling up heaps of stones. 
Every stone added with a prayer by the sorroA\'ing parents 
to a little pile in front of the child's image helps him with 
his building, and this shrine is full of children's images in 
stone, roughly carved, with smiling lips and long almond- 
shaped eyes. Before each is a heap of little pebbles, and 
children's tiny garments are tied round each insensible stone 
neck. A large Buddha near by, specially revered as the 
guardian of children, is hung all over with little bibs and 
coats, taken from sick children whose mothers have come to 
pray for their recovery. A lovers' shrine near by is enclosed 
A\'ith lattice-work, and he or she who ^\'ishes success in affairs 
of the heart, buys a prayer-slip, and ties it to the lattice- 
work, using, however, only the thumb and third finger — if 
other fingers touch the paper the charm is broken. The 
lattice is covered ^vi\h these paper slips, and as we looked a 
maiden was trying the spell, Avatched with indulgent smiles 
by an elder woman, while a tiny girl, whose love-time was 
yet to come, held up her little fingers to show how it should 
be done. Another method of ensuring the efficacy of prayer 
is to toss a pebble on to the shrine and see if it remains. If 
it falls off the prayer is refused. In the Shinto temples the 
prayer must be accompanied by the pulling of a bell-rope. 

Near every temple to which pilgrimages are made one sees 
numerous shops full of gourds. These are the dried seed-pod 
of a certain plant, and vary in size from a tiny gourd, no 
bigger than a thimble, to a large one as big as a family 
tea-pot. In old days they were doubtless used by pilgrims 
to carry water, and have the same significance in Japan as 









^V;~? .^i"'-;!'}''" ^|=>W./ ' ' /'/'^T''^ 



V ^ iS;,i? -•> j>^ 




APPROACH TO A TEMPLE, JAPAN. 



PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 169 

the shell from the Holy Land had with palmers in western 
lands. The gourds are polished, decorated with silken cords, 
and sold for a few sen, and they make very pretty mementoes 
of a visit to some picturesque shrine. 

Seeing how much their religion enters into the life of the 
poorer people, one is forced to wonder how much it counts 
for in the national existence of the Japanese. While far 
from laying down any dogma on the subject, from conversation 
A\ith educated Japanese and others who know the country 
\\ell, I am inclined to think that Buddhism is losing ground, 
but it is not certain that Christianity will gain in proportion. 
The Japanese, emancipated at one bound from so much, are 
inclined to go to the other extreme. I was much interested 
on the voyage out in listening to a protracted discussion 
between a young Japanese diplomat and a medical missionary. 
They argued backwards and backwards, the medical missionary 
pushing his man through one admission to another until 
they arrived at the primary cause. " God,"" said the medico. 
" Perhaps," said the Japanese ; " but why not call Him 
simply the first Unit. Why attribute design to Him ? " 
" Because there is evidence of design in the workings of 
natural la\\s." " Perhaps — but ^\'hy call it design ? May 
it not be simply the action and reaction of natural law ? " 
" I recognise in the creation of those laws a Supreme Being."" 
"I recognise nothing but the inexorable workings of evolution."" 
"I feel the absolute presence of some beneficent all-ruling 
Power in the universe." " How then do you account for sin 
and suffering ? " " The Power cannot interfere with the laws 
He has made, and evil influences war against him."" "My 
friend," remarked the Japanese scornfully, "we call these 
influences spirits in Japan, and put little bits of paper before 
their shrines to propitiate them." " Which proves that you 
ha\'e the elemental instinct of that Supreme Power of which 



170 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Ave hold the revelation/' " In Japan it is only the ignorant 
who have such an instinct. When Ave learn to think A\'e 
recognise our folly, and eAen the majority A\ho are still 
wrapped in superstition don't know the meaning of half of 
it and are not concerned to know. No ! ■" added the little 
man warmly; "it is only in their childhood that nations need 
religion to guide them, and it doesn't really matter \\hat 
religion — one has Buddha, another Christ — now we have 
science and are grown men and can think and knoA\' foi- 
ourselves." There is nothing particularly new in this argument, 
but from the lips of a modern Japanese it has a certain 
interest. 

The position of Avoman in Japan is a subject on Avhich 
most Avriters are inclined to dAvell, but from a Aery cursory 
observation I think that very i'ew Europeans are qualified to 
giA'e an opinion. Of the libel perpetrated by Pierre Loti in 
that sicklv book, " Madame Chrysantheme," I must, ho\\ever, 
speak so far as I can. To think that any one should 
deliberately form his ideas of a country like Japan from a 
stay in Nagasaki ! Nagasaki is pretty enough, and to a 
neAvly arrived traveller doubtless seems quaint and character- 
istic ; but infested as it is A\ith the scum of a treaty port, 
made the residence of third-rate foreigners of every race under 
the sun, A\'ith streets of drinking-shops of Avhich the names 
are Avritten in Russian, German, Italian, French, English, 
and indeed almost eyery civilised tongue, and Avhich are full 
of sailors of equally mixed nationality — Avell, I A^on't enter 
into any further details, but Nagasaki cannot be treated as a 
Japanese town. All the peasant A\'omen we saw looked happy 
and contented, though, poor little things, they seem to 
haA'e a baby perpetually strapped on their backs. The shop- 
keeping class of Avomen of the toAvns are neatly clad, and at 
a Japanese store where such things Avere sold I Avas told that 



PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 171 

they never buy cheap or shoddy obis or kimonos, but save up 
till they can get a good one. The poor women are dressed 
in blue linen, and wear a short loose jacket and skirt, with 
their legs likewise swathed in linen. Many of them, thus 
attired, work very hard, not only in the fields and carrying 
loads, but in coaling the ships. I believe that this is the 
only country in the world where Avomen are seen at this 
employment. 

The coal is passed along in little baskets, and, owing to the 
dustless character of the Nagasaki coal, the little blue-clad 
-tt'omen manage to look neat and almost clean throughout. 
They laugh and chatter all the time, and if they can get an 
opportunity to swarm on to the ship and peep into the 
cabins they are delighted. I never shall forget one morning, 
as I was busily engaged in packing a trunk, I heard a laugh, 
and looking round sa\\' three rows of broad, merry faces, with 
ruddy brown cheeks and little twinkling black eyes under 
white handkerchiefs tied like sun-bonnets. These were filling 
up the doorvva)' ; and when I saw them I laughed, and they 
laughed, and we were all as merry as possible, though what 
the joke was I haven't the faintest notion. The complexions 
of Japanese country-women are often extraordinary, and after 
being accustomed to the sallow-brown Filipinos or copper- 
coloured Malays it was a real treat to see these crimson 
cheeks and cherry lips. And yet I read only to day the 
diary of a globe-trotter who described the Nagasaki Avomen 
as the ugliest in the Avorld ! 

The ladies of the Japanese aristocracy are as different from 
their humble sisters as any two women of the same race can 
well be — quite as different in my opinion as 'Liza of Lambeth 
and the Duchess of Sangazure. The " real "" ladies are not 
seen about in the streets as a rule, but every now and then 
one gets a glimpse of them, and recognises at once the type 



172 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



familiar on Japanese fans. The carefully whitened face is 
long and oval, its contour heightened by the coiffure, which 
rolls back in great shiny black bows. The eyes are extremely 
elongated, and the mouth, composed into an expression of 
absolute indifference, is very small, and is made to look 
rosebud-like by a dab of red paint on 
the lower lip. The dainty, flowing 
Mmono, of some sober yet delicate hue 
outside, is worn over two or more 
garments of silken crepe, in contrasting 
or brilliant hues, of which little glimpses 
are obtained every now and then, and 
is confined by a handsome satin ohi of 
black or purple embroidered with gold. 
The little feet are clad in white silk 
socks, made with a separate great toe 
so that the embroidered strap of the 
tiny wooden clogs can pass between. 
The obi itself is kept in place first by a 
)>i ^'.rftvt.i T^^ narrow embroidered band with a dainty 

buckle, then by a crepe scarf, generally chosen to add another 
touch of colour, which is tied round just below the armpits. 
The exquisite finish, colour, and material of everything worn, 
the dainty hand-made and painted fan, the carefully arranged 
hair, decorated only with a beautiful lacquered or tortoise-shell 
comb and pin to match, all go to make up a picture of highly 
civilised and aesthetic dress, which makes an English lady or 
American belle, even when clad in a Parisian toilette, c/mz<**e^, 
gantee, and coiffee, as only a Frenchwoman knows how, look 
tawdry in comparison. As for our ordinary costumes, our cheap 
materials, shoddily run up, our badly finished boots and gloves 
and superabundance of coarse jewellery — they would seem 
unutterable beside the refined Japanese beauty and her simple 




PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 173 

perfection of detail. Although European dress does not become 
her in the same degree the high-born lady who adopts it uses 
the same good taste in her new costume, and no one who has 
mingled with the Japanese colony in London can have failed 
to notice the exquisite neatness and finish of the ladies' toilets 
— their well-fitting gloves and sparing use of jewels. 

Taking all these things together — the merry red-cheeked 
labouring lasses in their blue cotton, the well-clad, polite and 
smiling townswomen, with their grey striped Idmonos and 
black satin oh'is, the exquisite, proud-looking, daintily dressed 
ladies, one cannot feel that women are exactly in a bad 
position in Japan, but still there is, I believe, much to be 
done for them before they can take their places as the real 
equals and companions of their husbands. This book is 
confined to sketches of what I actually saw and heard, so that 
I can say no more on this interesting subject, but will merely 
quote an amusing story told me by a Formosan lady mis- 
sionary. A young Japanese friend of hers, who had been 
converted to Christianity, kept up a correspondence with her 
when she went home. She read me a letter just received from 
him which ran something as follows : 

" And now, as you are my soul's friend, I can no longer 
conceal from you some painful news, and I feel sure that at 
this unfortunate moment I shall have your deepest sympathy. 
I am about to be married ! "" 

The letter went on to state that the writer believed the 
young lady to be everything that could be desired but that 
he had no inclination towards matrimony, which he regarded 
as a clog to an intelligent man, and had only yielded for the 
sake of peace to the representations of his father and 
brothers. It is comforting to be able to record that in a 
subsequent letter this reluctant bridegroom spoke with 
evident pride of " my dear young wife ! " 



CHAPTER XIII 

A PLAYGROUND AND ITS WORKERS (CONTINUED) 

A contrast — Japanese potteries — Painting — China for Chicago 
— For Japan — Silk-weaving — Tea-firing — A tea-party — The 
Japanese Mary Ann — Andrew and I are envious but not for 
long 



LTHOUGH on the surface, life 
in Japan seems to be all play, a 
great deal of work is got through, 
and therefore I want to introduce 
my reader to a Japanese factory. 
Think first of the Potteries at 
home — of the black dreary streets, 
the huge, hideous buildings, the 
smoking chimneys, pallid badly 
dressed people, busy warehouses 
with stacks of goods, people run- 
ning up and down, drays lumbering into the yards, narrow 
wooden staircases leading to long bare rooms full of busy 
people who are modelling, painting, packing— all with the 
greatest rapidity and amid the buzz of machinery ; then get 
into a 'rickshaw and bowl away through the sunshine down a 
street in Kioto. The houses on either side have only one 
story, but their frnots have a sort of double roof — two lines 




PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 175 

of grey fluted tiles curving up at the sides, and frowning, as 
it were, over a low doorway. There is a lattice- work where 
the shop window ought to be, and this front room is usually 
a sort of office, where a polite youth squats on the matting 
beside a charcoal brazier and paints in a rice-paper book or 
takes tea from a minute cup and a tiny teapot. The passage 
is of wood, but the floor of this office is raised and is of 
spotless matting, and we rub our shoes well before we dare step 
on it. The Japanese leave clogs or sandals in the passage. The 
polite youth slides back a portion of the wall, which is com- 
posed of white wooden squares filled in with whiter paper. 
We step into a garden — quite a tiny place, but so divided 
by little hedges, artificial lakelets full of gold-fish and 
spanned by tiny stone bridges, miniature groups of trees, and 
other devices of the Japanese gardener, that it seems quite 
large. The different sheds which make up the factory are 
scattered round this garden, and sliding back another white 
paper wall we step into one and see the men, seated on the 
ground, shaping cups on the potter's wheel just as they do in 
Staffordshire. Instead, however, of the band and treadle 
worked by a girl who dances for ever on a spring board, a 
bamboo-rod attached to a guiding wooden disc is worked by 
a woman and sets the potter's wheel in motion. Just behind, 
a blue-clad maiden, with a white handkerchief tied over her 
glossy black hair and throwing into relief her rosy cheeks, 
is fitting on the handles with dainty deliberation. In another 
shed are a couple of clean wooden tubs, with white wooden 
dippers, and these contain the glaze, which is being applied 
with brushes by two or three men and women sitting near by. 
They ladle out a little glaze into another spotless vessel, and 
then apply it daintily. Close to them is a shed where three 
tiny ovens are packed with china, and kept burning with 
wood of a selected quality, which seems to burn with a bright 



176 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



clear flame and make no dirt or smoke. The workers are 
clad in the most useful and picturesque working-dress in the 
\\orld. The women in a loose tunic of dark blue, folding 
over at the bosom and fastened with a cord round the waist, 
a short striped skirt, and leggings also of blue, the feet bare 
or encased in white twill stockings ^^-ith the big toe separate 

to allow for the fasten- 
ing of the straw san- 
dals or wooden clod's 
f;<(ii- worn in the street. On 
the head is the white 
handkerchief already 
described. The men 
wear tight blue cotton 
breeches, leggings of 
dark blue, and white 
or loose blue tunics, 
with sleeves ; over this 
"^ they put a blue cotton 

coat, often decorated with ^\'hite Chinese characters, and 
made short and full, with wide sleeves. 

The most interesting part of the pottery manufacture is, 
perhaps, the decoration, and this is where the Japanese excel. 
In a low, long room, open on one side to the pleasant garden, 
half a dozen men and one boy sit on their heels, intent on 
filling in Avith minute designs in gold the surface of some 
beautiful jars. The shortest apprenticeship to such work is 
eight years, but boys — generally relations of the former work- 
men — begin early, and are put to work on purely mechanical 
fillings of simple designs. The trained workmen, while carrying 
out a certain broad pattern, are free to improvise to a certain 
extent, and all seemed to be working without any exact copy. 
The modern Satsuma which I saw them employed on was 




PLAYGUOUND AND WORKERS 177 

decorated with exquisite little pictures of Japanese life — a 
fete among the cherry-blossom, a tiny temple, and so forth — 
Avith a surrounding groundwork of rich, dark colour, itself 
broken with traceries of gold. The work was indescribably 
fine and dainty, the designs in many cases graceful, and the 
colourings tender ; but there is an unmistakable leaning 
towards mere prettiness, and the modern designs in this 
respect compare unfavourably with those of real old Satsuma. 
I am speaking of the best modern Satsuma — the worst is 
unspeakable and unworthy of the name, but is turned out 
in cartloads for the foreign market, cheap ware being even 
brought to Japan for decoration. I fancy that only by 
importing the ware could the work be sent out at the 
prices usual in European and (especially) American markets, 
for here the cheapness of Japanese labour tells, since the 
painting must be done by hand. The actual manufacture 
of porcelain must be infinitely cheaper at home. Side by 
side with this little sleepy atelier, Avith its patient, careful 
artists and the tiny, old-world garden, is a terrible modern 
show-room. Here monstrosities are ranged in rows, and gold 
is piled on gold, blue shrieks against blue, and yellow quarrels 
with magenta, till one shuts one's eyes and hurries for relief 
into the next room, followed by smiling Japanese Avho say, 
" Yes ! it is all velly bad, but sell velly much ! " 

The next room has a low wooden table and a few chairs, 
and round the walls on a black lacquer shelf are arranged 
delicate and beautiful pieces, the slender vases on little stands, 
the plaques in boxes. One by one these and other really 
artistic pieces are brought, and under their soothing influence 
we begin to recover. 

Although in the manufactory we have described work is 
still carried on in the old picturesque primitive way there 
are large factories in Kioto already at work Avhere modern 

M 



178 TAVO OX THEIR TRAVELS 

mac'hinei'v is used, and in some cases, in the manufacture of 
silk for instance, both hand-looms and machinery are used. 
The reason is not hard to seek. Much of the work is farmed 
out in houses, and A\hole districts earn their living in this 
A\'av, every member of the family helping. It is cheap labour, 
and the people are skilful and reliable. When one steps out 
of the sunlight into such a house, one sees first the outer 
room, alwavs neat, clean, and empty save for a charcoal vase. 
Through the sliding screen comes a familiar rattle, and peeping 
through we see four hand-looms in a row, the workmen seated 
on springv strips of bamboo with their legs in holes dug out 
of the bare earth. The ^veavers are all men, and they shoot 
the shuttle back and forth ^\•ith wonderful rapidity. Close 
bv two buxom girls are reeling the silk with a little contriv- 
ance like that of the wheel and spindle on a sewing-machine, 
but all made of bamboo. The rough silk, wound into skeins, 
is reeled off on another machine, whose motive-power is a 
rope attached to a big stone at one end and the axle of a 
wheel at the other. The stone descends slowly, the \\heel 
revolves and a dozen carders ^ith it, each drawing off a fine 
thread of silk from the skeins. At one side a toothless but 
merrv old A\oman is preparing rice over the neat charcoal 
burner. A few greens lie beside her in a shallow basket. 
Children toddle about every^^'here and never seem to be in 
the way. One sits beside its father on the weaving-bench 
and makes solenm pretence of being very busy with a few 
bits of silk. Again we are struck with the homeliness, the 
picturesqueness, and the cheerful healthy look of the workers. 
Owing to the construction of Japanese houses there is usually 
a current of air, and these combined workshops and living- 
rooms are not stuffy or smelly, though they contrast curiously 
with the ugly, airy, light rooms demanded by sanitary 
authorities for factories at home. 



PLAYGROUND AND AVORKERS 179 



A tea-firing factory is one of the most interesting sights in 
Japan. We saA\' first the tea-gardens, with their prim Httle 
rows of shrubs, where the leaves are gathered by industrious 
rows of men and \\omen, carried 
in baskets to the collecting- 
house, roughly fired, and 
packed in wooden cases to be 
sold to great firms. Arrived 
at the storehouse in Kobe or 
Yokohama, the tea is sampled 
by the owner or manager. The 
leaves are placed in boiling- 
water in small cups, and are 
sampled by smell and not by 
taste to see if they are up to 
the standard of the sample 
sent for approbation. If it is 
all right the tea is stored in a 
huge stack, like a big green 
haystack, inside the godown, 
and from thence taken to the 
firing- and sifting-rooms. In 
one long, low room several 
hundred women sat on the 
floor with a low table in front 
of them on which they sorted 
the tea, picking out stalks and 
sweeping the good tea into baskets. Their nimble hands 
danced over the leaves like those of a typist on her instru- 
ment, and they chattered and sang incessantly. The hours 
are very long, from 5 a.m. till 7 p.ji., but the hardship of 
this is not so great as it seems. They bring their children 
and their food, and are provided v/ith tea. The work is paid 




S»l"| .. 



180 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

by the piece ; they can knock off' when they Hke, and the 
season only lasts for a few months. Early in the morning we 
heard them pattering by on their little clogs, laughing and 
chattering, and they look cheerful and healthy as they sit 
round the long room picking away. Little girls help their 
mothers, babies roll on the floor, or sit up stiffly in their 
wadded coats gazing round with their black, beady eyes. In 
another room, where the tea was being shaken through 
sieves, a perfect din of singing greeted us — the song always 
the same, three or four monotonous notes in a sort of recitative. 
Here the workers were strong-looking girls, and each had her 
well-oiled black hair protected with a handkerchief. The 
sifting is also done by machinery in a giant sifter, and a part 
of the work very trying when done by hand — the stirring in 
pans over hot furnaces — is now mostly done by machines. 
In other parts of the factory boxes are made, lined with 
sheet-lead Avhich comes all the way from England, and 
decorated. The labels are stencilled by a native artist, colours 
being laid on one at a time. Women and girls are employed 
in making up packets of tea and sticking on little labels. 
All over the factories there is the clean, fresh fragrance peculiar 
to Japanese tea, and it may be noted that the finest tea is 
not drunk hot by the natives, but is made with warm \\'ater. 
It is very fragrant, though only pale yellow in colour. The 
tea given in temples is far less pleasant to taste, being a dark, 
thick green liquid with white froth on the surface. This 
sort of tea is made with the leaves powdered finely between 
the hands. 

Finally, a description of a Japanese tea menage may be 
interesting. A lacquer-box contains the precious leaf; a 
dainty bronze kettle is heated on charcoal in a big urn ; the 
tea-pots are tiny and nearly filled M'ith the leaves, through 
which the water (poured out at once) filters into tiny. 



PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 181 

handleless cups. A little ring of lacquered wood makes a 
saucer on which the cups are handed to guests, seated on flat 
cushions or square bits of thick felt. Cakes of sweetened 
rice enclosed in leaves are handed round also in a deep bowl, 
and each guest is provided with smoking facilities in the 




shape of a square box without a lid, containing a little china 
bowl of red-hot charcoal and a round jar for his pipe-ashes. 
He takes his little pipe, with a bowl like a thimble, out of its 
leather or silk case, takes a couple of whiff^'s and knocks out 
the ashes into the jar. The clattering of clogs and the 
tapping of pipes are characteristic sounds of Japan. 

A tea-party in a real Japanese house is one of the delightful 
little pictures that remain in the memory. The tiny house 
was that of a well-to-do retired merchant, and stood in a 
miniature garden complete with all the details of temples, 
groves and trickling stream studded with iris and spanned by 
bridges. The whole affair occupied about as nmch space as 
is frequently, in less crowded countries, devoted to the " back 



182 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

yard.'" The polite old host in his grey Ihnono knelt on a 
flat mat facing tis, as we tried to compose our awkward 
western limbs into comfortable attitudes on the floor. Then 
a rosy-cheeked maiden shuffled forward with beaming smiles, 
and dropping on her knees before us deposited a tiny cup 
resting on a lacquered ring and filled with a pale golden 
fluid. Bending forward many times, with smiles and gestures, 
till her forehead almost touched the ground, she begged us to 
partake of the tea and also of some white, sticky-looking 
cakes, each w rapped in a green leaf, which she handed us in 
a china bowl. This obliging maiden was the Mary Ann of the 
establishment, and as we contemplated her shining black hair, 
done into great rolls, and her pretty grey h'miono with its 
black satin ohi and tiny toucli of mauve at the throat, we 
could not help having visions of occidental Mary Anns, with 
their absurd little white caps, hair twisted into a tiny bun, 
shabby, ill-fitting black frocks, and general air of cheap 
pertness. 

I went to interview the mistress of the house in a back 
room, which appeared to be the kitchen. It was as clean 
and neat as the parlour, and the only signs of cooking were 
two or three fire-boxes, rather larger than that used for 
tea-making, and a neat row of kitchen utensils, all of miniature 
proportions. The walls of the room were lined with lacquered 
shelves, upon which the clothes of the family lay neatly folded. 
Madame sat on the floor, busily engaged in cutting a new 
Mmono out of some grey cloth with an enormous pair of 
scissors. She was a wrinkled and ugly old thing, with large, 
horn spectacles on her nose, but she bowed and smiled most 
amiably, nodding and laughing at my ardent interest in her 
iuenag-e, and showing her blackened teeth as she smiled. 

AndreA\' and I wanted at first to take a little Japanese 
house and have a Japanese Mary Ann to bring us tea. We 



PLAYGROUND AND WORKERS 183 

felt that in the quiet haven of such a little home we should 
be able to cultivate our minds ad in/initian, to live our own 
lives, think our own thoughts, and, in short, give our souls 
the breathing-space they often lack in this busy, bustling, 
every-day world. Alas for ideals ! Almost before we had 
finished the sticky cakes our knees were stiff with kneeling 
on the flat cushions, and as ^\'e rose and took a final glance 
round this dolFs-house of wood and paper we had a sudden 
revulsion against the delicate, carefullv arranged, decorative 
value of each detail. We A\anted to take great masses of 
masonry and pile them on crags like the Rhine towers ; we 
wished for the rich, barbaric colour and plethora of ornament 
A\ ith which the Moors glorified Southern Spain ; we longed 
for the wild luxuriance of tropical forests, for the majestic 
carions of the Rockies, for the free, open spaces of the veldt ; 
in short, Japan got very small and very croA\ ded, and, although 
it is the most delightful playground in the A\orld, Nature 
there seemed to us too pose, too carefully arranged, to speak 
with that grand voice we know and love in less cultivated 
lands. The Japanese have loved their goodly heritage, have 
cherished and adorned its beauty, but it is no longer fresh 
from the hand of the Creator and breathing of Him alone. 
Quaint, beautiful, picturesque country though it be, it is of 
man and his ingenuity that we are constantly reminded. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE INLAND SEA AND KOREA 

How not to see a country — Of impressions— My private 
picture gallery — Serious shopping — Andrew is foiled — The 
Inland sea compared to the Philippines — A tea-house and a 
suspicious maiden — A gold screen — Of food on Japanese 
boats — Of tinned milk and moms — The Korean coast — A 
land of tombstones — Coiffure extraordinary — An eccentric 
costume — A suggestion to ''the last of the Dandies" — An 
indelible picture — The uniqueness of Korea and its people — 
A peep into a house — Buying a brass bowl — The Japanese in 
Korea — Sayonara 



UR time in Japan was extremely limited, 
for we had the continents of Asia and 
Europe, not to mention the Japan sea 
and the Channel, between us and London, 
where we were already expected. Our 
travels had unduly protracted themselves, 
and Japan was not really in our itinerary 
but was a rest preparatory to the final 
homeward journey. Andrew already 
knew the country well, but as it was my first visit he was 
distracted as to what places to take me to. He asked advice 
from the many friends we met at Kobe, and they all said 
different things. At last a little trip was arranged to cover 




THE INLAND SEA 185 

our time, but when I came to check it I found that at least 
five out of our twenty days would be spent in travelling on 
trains or getting from one place to another. This is a way 
of seeing a country which has never commended itself to me, 
and besides I Manted a rest; we therefore went to Kioto 
and remained there practically the whole time. We made a 
very few excursions, did not worry about sight-seeing, and 
avoided fatigue. We sat on our verandah and watched the 
play of light and shade across Yaami, we poked about in 
funny little temples and burial-grounds, we visited factories, 
studios and workshops, and were thoroughly happy and con- 
tented. One day we saw a fire — a tea-shop alight and burning 
briskly — and the fire-brigade, got up in costumes of blue and 
yellow in large stripes, rushing to the spot, where they erected 
little ladders and running up them ladled Mater over the 
flames with little ^\'ooden dippers. Many other quaint things 
we saw and heard which may not be written here, and indeed, 
considering the number of books about Japan written by 
people who know it better, it is perhaps a little superfluous 
to describe that country at all. I can only say that, although 
I have consumed all the standard books on the subject, there 
still seem to be plenty of fresh things to write about, and 
although in this much described land one is constantly 
recognising some familiar incident or object, yet the im- 
pressions given are always new and fresh. Of course one has 
read all about the temples, but has never realised them 
before, and one notices with amused surprise the old priest 
going round with a shovel to gather up the copper coins. 
Outside, in the sunny court approached by steep stone steps, 
one feels familiar with the quaint statues of Buddha behind the 
shrines, the curious little stone lanterns and the many-roofed 
pagodas — but it is a personal discovery that pigeons make 
their homes in every stone crevice, and the white flash of 



186 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



their wings in the sunshine lingers in the memory. Near by, 
an old, old Moman is passing her tingers over the eyes of a 
carved figure, and then pressing them to her own, murmuring 
a prayer for the rene\\'al of her eyesight. 

Japan is full of such little genre pictures, and we passed 

the lazy days in taking note of 
these and storing up a gallery 
of memory. I v>'ould not ex- 
change my own private and 
particular collection of mental 
pictures for the finest museum 
of old or young masters ! You 
see there are no faults of tech- 
niqiie, no careless drawing or 
loose handling in viij pictures ; 
each is perfect, and seen through 
a golden haze which provides 
an unrivalled chiaroscuro. 

It was in Japan that I at 
last determined to do some 
serious shopping. Andrew began some faint remark about 
— " wait till you get to Siberia " — but I had begun to feel 
suspicious about that formula and told him I didn't hanker 
after Siberian goods at all, and I forthwith began a raid on 
silks, embroideries and other delights. I afterwards saw the 
same things a good deal cheaper in Regent Street, and 
Andrew has ever since looked " I told you so ! "" though he is 
far too magnanimous to say it. 

We left Kobe, where we had been welcomed by a charming 
little British community and spent some happy hours, on a 
^'ery hot day, and in perfect weather steamed through the 
Inland sea. The far-famed scenery rather disappointed me 
on both the occasions I passed through it. It is pretty, of 




THE INLAND SEA 



187 



course, and that in a dainty way peculiar to Japan, but not 
to be compared with the romantic beauty of similar stretches 
of water among the Philippines, where the verdant islands, 
Avith the whitest fringe of sand running round them, are set 
in a sapphire sea, and dominated by great ranges of purple 
mountains, capped perhaps by the cone of a volcano. 




Half wav through the sea one stops at Shimonosekei to 
coal, and here a ramble on shore through the quaint little 
town invariably ends up at a tea-house where Li Hung 
Chang signed the famous treaty. We found the white- 
latticed house quiet and empty, so taking off our boots we 
went upstairs into the room ^^'here the deed was done. 

It Avas a perfectly bare white room, with the exception of 
a blue vase with a few peonies carelessly but artfully stuck 
into it. The floor was white matting and very clean. We 
walked round laughing and talking. Suddenly ^e heard a 
little squeal, then a clit-clatter of clogs, and a tiny woman 
came pattering into the room uttering little soft exclamations. 



188 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

With a hasty glance at us she pattered to a corner, where 
was a pile of flat silk cushions, and not till she had counted 
these over did her anxiety relax. I am afraid some unfor- 
tunate experience of foreign tourists must have made her 
suspicious. She then became smiling and polite and brought 
us tea and delicious sponge-cake, and she showed us the 
beautiful gold-lacquered writing-box which had served Li 
Hung Chang when he signed the treaty. 

At Shimonosekei I saw the loveliest door-screen I ever 
beheld. The custom in China and Japan is to have an open 
space for the door, and just inside, to secure a certain amount 
of privacy (and possibly to bar the way to evil spirits), is a 
flat screen, standing on heavy carved feet. Often the frame- 
work is elaborately carved and the screen is ornamented only 
with some motto. This particular one was inside a new tea- 
house, and the unpainted Avood of the doorway was still fresh 
and spotless. Inside Avas a sort of hall, rather dark, but 
conveying an impression of creamy colourlessness. Before 
the entrance to the next room stood the screen, framed in 
plain black lacquer, with simple curved feet. At first it 
seemed a jumble of gold and brown, but after a bit it grew 
into a woodland landscape in autumn, a gnarled tree with 
falling leaves, and a quaint little goblin figure. We often 
speak of the autumn A\'oods as turning to gold, but this artist 
had the daring to paint them actually gold, and got his lights 
and shades with a few dabs of brown and red. 

On our Japanese boat we enjoyed most excellent fare, and 
indeed it was by no means the least of our joys at this period 
to eat fresh meat, fruit, and vegetables, and drink real milk. 
I think the thing I suffered most from throughout our travels 
was the tinned milk, until I got to Russian territory and 
learned to drink tea without it. The flavour of even the 
very best "unsweetened'"' milk in tins is repugnant to me; 




>»- ^^^"l^^^'^ 



V •"*1^ 





'SAYONARA. " 



THE INLAND SEA 



189 



and this reminds me that I once asked a steward on an Orient 
boat, " Steward, is this tinned or fresh milk ? " and he 
repHed: "I think, mum, ifs Avhat they call consecrated milk!" 
The Japanese 7ne7m of English dishes was sometimes equally 
amusing, but I can only recollect one (most appropriate) 
mistake, when the " dessert '"' was given 
as " raisins, figs, and other dry goods." 

After another rini ashore at Nagasaki 
we spent two rather unj)leasant days 
tossing about before we ran in under 
the sheltering coast of Korea. I shall 
never forget the unspeakable dreariness 
of that Korean coast — flat or gently 
undulating, bare and brown. As we 
approached Fusan I exclaimed that the 
broMH hills Avere covered with tomb- 
stones, for specks of white seemed to be 
dotted about everywhere. As we drew nearer, however, 
these resolved themselves into human beings wrapped in 
pseudo-white garments — shapeless bundles many of them. 

The town, as it lay before us, was a most uninviting place. 
A Japanese quarter on one hand was fairly neat and clean, 
and behind on a hill a small grove of trees had been planted 
by them round a tiny temple ; otherwise the whole country 
seemed bare and destitute of any vegetation except brownish 
grass, and the untidy Korean street, straggling away from 
the few European bungalows and godowns on the wharf, 
wandered up a hill, and continued at intervals to crop out 
along a very badly made road which led apparently to 
nowhere in particular. Along this road moved a steady 
procession of figures in all shades of white garments. A 
glance at the sketches will give a better idea of them than 
any words. The long coat worn by the men is of fine A\'hite 




190 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



cloth among the better classes, and is tied ^\•ith tapes ; the 
trousers are loose, and the feet are bandaged with the same 
material, the footgear being completed either by Chinese 
high boots or by sandals, generally of straw. But the 
crowning eccentricity of the costuiiie is the hat, which is 
more like the Welsh headgear than anything else, except that 
^ it is made of black buckram, semi- 
transparent, and is tied beneath the chin 
Avith black strings. The women are 
usually very shapeless, and seem to wear 
any number of full skirts. Their coats 
are of the abbreviated Eton type fashion- 
able in England not long since, and they 
,^ leave off just before the skirt begins, 
which is curious, to sav the least of it. 
Withal the Koreans are among the finest 
and best-looking people I have seen. 
Their complexions are a rich olive, with 
almost crimson cheeks and lips. Their eyes are bright, and 
their hair black and glossy. 

At first I thought that abundant locks must be usual 
among the A\onien, since all m ore their hair in a long thick 
band which encircled the head. I A\itnessed, however, the 
toilet of one lady and was disillusioned. AVith a deft move- 
ment she detached the coil from her head, and revealed the 
fact that her own hair Mas exceedingly scant. She then 
proceeded to part it down the middle, smooth it tight back 
on either side, and screw it into a minute knob behind, which 
she apparently tied into a knot. Then she took her " swdtch,'" 
and fastening one end in behind, she braided it once right 
over her head and tucked in the end skilfully. She used no 
hairpins ! 

I understand that a very considerable strain of Caucasian 




THE INLAND SEA 



19] 



blood is believed to exist in the Koreans, so that their 
straight features and bright complexions ar^ frilly accounted 
for, but where, oh where did they get the idea for their 
chinuiey-pot hats ? Did the early discoverers of Korea im- 
port that form of headgear into Europe, or did they take it 
with them and corrupt the Koreans ? There is one point 
worthy of notice. Although clinging to 
the chimney-pot as an out\\'ard and visible 
sign of respectability as firmly as does the 
church-going Britisher, they do make the 
obnoxious thing of light material. A 
summer top-hat of semi-transparent buck- 
ram tied with black silk ribbons under 
the chin Avould surely find great vogue in 
London during the dog-days, if only 
some one of influence would start the 
fashion. 

I have only visited the coast of Korea. 
Andrew tells me that inland there are 
valleys and mountains, green and fertile, well-built towns, 
and busy rivers. The nobility and aristocracy wear gowns of 
exquisite coloured silks, and the country altogether is bright 
and picturesque. It may be, I suppose it must be, true, but 
Korea, of all the countries of the East, is the strangest and 
most unthinkable, and I cannot get rid of my own impression 
of bare brown hills, squalid stone huts, and a population 
chiefly clad in whitey-yellow rags. 

Anything less like the neighbouring countries of Japan and 




China it is difficult to imagine. 



China, 



with its gorgeous 



colouring, its crowded cities of narrow winding streets, full of 
yellow-faced, pig-tailed people in rich blues and greens. Japan 
with its dolPs-house prettiness, its merry little people in grey 
kimonos, its little tufted hills, with temples hanging on their 



192 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



sides, ravines choked with cherry-blossoin and spanned by 
fairy bridges. The Koreans themselves are unmistakably 
different in appearance, though every now and then there is a 
strong resemblance to the Japanese. They are as a rule 
large-limbed and slow in movement, though strong and well- 
built. Their faces are frequently adorned with rather scanty 
beards and moustaches, and this added to their solemnity 

and dignity of bearing and 
their very intelligent black 
eyes (unlike the stony, twink- 
ling orbs of the Chinaman) 
are peculiarities which distin- 
guish them at once. 

A medical missionary at a 
Korean port, whose pretty 
little house and tiny hospital 
we visited, spoke with enthu- 
siasm of their disposition and 
intelligence, and it does seem the greatest pity that these fine 
people should be kept back by the evils of misrule. The 
poverty of the ordinary peasant is extreme, and he knows 
that any sign of prosperity will only bring down on him an 
extra tax or imposition. At both the ports we visited the 
Japanese settlements were considerable, and a great contrast 
in their neat prosperity to the tumble-down hovels of the 
Koreans. It seemed to me, by the way, that the latter, alone 
among Far Eastern nations, fence in their d\\'elling-houses 
with a sort of outer wall (I mean amongst the very poor). 
Peeping through this stockade we could see a small, low hut, 
sometimes half scooped in the hill-side, in which the family 
and the pigs and fowls live together, Irish fashion. Cooking 
is done in brass bowls, and we managed to secure some of 
these — apparently the only things of any worth in the huts. 




THE INLAND SEA 193 

One we bought in the open street from an old man Avho was 
consuming his rice out of it. We were looking for a bowl 
for some hours with no success Avhen we saw a funny old 
bundle of yellow rags, with a lean, brown face and a pair of 
skinny hands, holding a dear little bowl. We offered him a 
Mexican dollar, pointing to the bowl — he apparently thought 
we wanted the rice, ladled it on to a wooden tray, and 
offered it to us. We continued to point to the bowl, where- 
upon he held up three brown fingers. AVe refused ; he 
thereupon put the rice back and went on with his dinner. 
We produced three half-dollars, and the crowd which had 
collected with much amusement apparently advised the old 
man to take it, so he held out the bowl — rice and all — and 
fearing he might change his mind, I grabbed it hastily and 
made off, followed by the crowd who evidently wanted to see 
Avhat I would do with it. 

A day or two later we anchored in Vladivostock harbour, 
and with genuine regret said good-bye to our ship and the 
dear little Japs who had made part of our delightful holiday. 

Sayonara, little people, Avith your cleverness, precocity, 
soft voices, sweet smiles and gentle manners. I bow three, 
four, nay, a dozen times towards you, as your own polite 
custom is. I kneel before you on a flat cushion and, putting 
my forehead to the earth, I ask that you will accept a humble 
tribute of admiration to your charming land — the playground 
of the world — and its busy workers. Sayonara ! 



CHAPTER XV 

VLADIVOSTOCK AND A RAILWAY JOUENEY 

Vladivostock from the picturesque, commercial, domestic, 
and social points of view — The servant question again — 
Our train — Of food and prices — ^A noisy departure — Space, 
scenery and sunset 




FTER seven months among the islands 
of the Eastern Archipelago, from Java 
to Japan — largely spent, perforce, in 
steamers of all sorts and conditions — I 
was glad to embrace any means of 
getting home without further experience 
of choppy seas, save perhaps the Channel 
crossing. When we left the Japanese 
steamer that had brought us from 
Kobe, through the Inland sea and via the Korean ports, to 
Vladivostock, I landed with considerable satisfaction at the 
thought that only a few miles of sea (though 5000 miles of 
land) lay between me and London. 

Vladivostock, straggling untidily about on a background 
of low, brown hills, is a great contrast to the decorative towns 
of Japan. Broad red roads scar the sides of the hills, and 
houses of all sorts are dotted on every side of these, with no 
particular attention to a street line. Here is an ornate, 



A RAILWAY JOURNEY 195 

pretentious building covered with white stucco, there a 
red-brick monstrosity, and again an untidy wooden shanty. 
Building lots in a state of disorder, and half-finished houses, 
are to be seen on every side, for Vladivostock is young, and 
still growing. The Admiral's house has a small garden with 
a few trees and shrubs, but as a rule houses and shops stand 
in naked ugliness and crudity, which are the more apparent 
under a blazing smmmer sun. Droshhies, or open carriages 
— the istvoschils, or drivers, making the one picturesque 
note in the scene, clad in red, loose blouses, black, sleeveless, 
full-skirted coats and the shaggy, low-crowned hat familiar to 
us in pictures — are waiting to bump us over the rough roads, 
up the sides of almost perpendicular hills, and round impossible 
corners. If I lived in Vladivostock I should be obliged to 
hire an istvoschik to drive me furiously every day, that I. 
might forget the ugliness of life in continual gratitude for my 
preservation from sudden death. 

There are 400 Germans in Vladivostock and two Enghsh- 
men; but besides these ordinary, unpicturesque, money-making 
individuals, one sees a motley crowd in the streets, and on 
every side are big-bodied, florid Russians, invariably attired 
in uniform of some kind, varying in details but always in- 
cluding the sapogi, or high boots, and the flat peaked cap. 
Apropos of uniform, it is obligatory to all in any kind of 
Government employ when on Russian soil, and we heard 
many complaints from military officers as to the inconvenience. 
Their summer coats of white drill are never clean on such a 
journey as this, and the light grey overcoats are both easily 
spoiled and impossible to clean. A Russian officer of rank 
is the most gorgeous person, and seems to put on full-dress 
uniform as soon as he gets up — probably before he washes ; I 
am not sure that he does not sleep in it, stars and all ! These 
uniforms make an impressive show in the streets of all Russian 



196 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

towns, but more particularly in those which are military posts. 
At Khabarovsk, for instance, there were at the time of our 
visit no less than twenty-nine Generals — imagine the pageant ! 
Besides the uniformed element one sees in the streets of 
Vladivostock many bundles of yellow, dirty rags, with long 
legs protruding, lean brown faces, and black hair twisted into 
a knob on the top. These are Korean coolies, and they are 
jostled by tidy little Japanese in travestied bowlers and black 
coats, and by big, solemn Chinamen Avith long blue frocks 
and black silk caps. The latter are substantial merchants 
and traders, who have returned to their trafficking despite the 
uncomfortable events which scared them away last year. 
The Chinese and the Germans are the principal traders in the 
Russian port of Vladivostock, and hitherto have made a very 
^ood thing of it, Imt the imposition of the European-Russian 
tariff' seriously aff*ected them, and unless it is modified the 
development of Vladivostock will be greatly retarded. Placed 
at such a distance from European Russia, and forced to draw 
almost every article, whether of necessity or luxury, from 
America, Japan, or China, it is impossible to support the 
imposition of duties which, in many cases, more than double 
prices. Already the beautiful land-locked harbour, which 
used to be dotted thickly with vessels, was almost devoid of 
them, and trade was being driven to Talienwan. 

The Whiteley of eastern Siberia, whose magazines, well 
stored and filled with well-dressed, intelligent assistants, are 
to be found throughout the Amur district and Manchuria, 
and whose agencies are everywhere along the line, as Avell as 
in Japan, is a German firm. Vei'bum sap. It seems as though 
the Teuton and the Chinaman would one day divide the 
commercial supremacy of half the world. The head of this 
particular firm came to Vladivostock with less than the pro- 
verbial half-crown and a pedlar's pack. In 1864 he opened 



A RAILWAY JOURNEY 197 

one small room ; now his is a name to conjure by and, in 
a country where more than kissing goes by favour, we have 
found the goodwill of his agents almost as useful as the letters 
to governors with which we were provided. 

There are pleasant homes in Vladivostock, and most un- 
pleasant hotels. Fortunately we were not obliged to try the 
latter for ourselves, but on all hands we heard of their 
dearness and badness. Eight roubles — sixteen shillings — per 
night for lodging alone, meals being charged separately, is 
too much for the privilege of an ill-appointed room. Here, 
however, as throughout Russia, one can obtain a room 
for a more moderate sum at a podvo?'ia, a sort of lodging" 
house, where attendance of a limited nature is provided, 
and one can have the use of the samovar for a small sum. 
Meals must be taken in restaurants. 

Compensations for a rather monotonous life in Vladivostock 
— where society is too heterogeneous to be pleasant, and the 
military are too poor to entertain each other, and too proud 
to associate with merchants — is to be found in the excellence 
of the climate (except when it is wet), in the profusion of 
such food-supplies as fish and game, and of flowers — of which I 
must write later — and in such sport as is provided by fishing 
in the bay, shooting along its shores in summer, and skating 
on it when it is frozen, Vladivostock is noted for its fogs, 
and the rain is sometimes excessive in the summer — the year 
before last it rained without cessation from May to October — 
but the winter climate has the brilliant coldness of the 
interior of northern China without that dryness so irritating 
to the nerves. 

Good Chinese servants are to be got in Vladivostock at 
proportionately good wages, but the majority in domestic 
service are Russians, and euphemistically termed " retired 
convicts." There is something a little alarming to the 



198 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

unaccustomed in the idea, and the only EngHsh lady in 
Vladivostock might have been pardoned a little nervousness 
when recently, on a visit to the model island which lies off 
the bay, she found herself the only woman, save two female 
servants who had each murdered their husbands and families ! 
The istvoscliiks are all "retired convicts," which would add 
still more spice to one''s daily drive. As a rule these people 
do not break out into fresh crime, for they know if caught in 
the act they can be shot on sight — such is the law in 
Vladivostock, though capital punishment is not permitted in 
Russia proper. Burglaries are, however, by no means rare — 
one may have the pleasure of " dropping "" a burglar without 
any long residence in Vladivostock, but it is advisable to hit 
him in front, for a wound in the back may give the police an 
excuse for being tiresome. It is more likely, however, that 
the burglar will not call when one is at home, but will take a 
more convenient opportunity of removing one's valuables. 

We left Vladivostock at 9 o'clock, on a beautiful, sunny 
morning, with a fresh, invigorating breeze. We needed all 
the vigour we could command to crush our way through the 
crowd and into the coupe reserved for us ; and this despite the 
fact that, owing to the kindness of Russian friends, we were 
escorted by a bodyguard of a railway official, the captain of a 
launch, four sailors, and several Korean coolies. Had we not 
been fortunate enough to have an engaged coupe, we should 
have been obliged — as is usual in Siberia, if not throughout 
Russia — to be at the station quite an hour beforehand to 
secure places. The station was packed with people and 
luggage, and a military band crowded it still more, and rent 
the air with brazen strains. Every now and then the voice of 
the crowd got the upper hand — if I may be pardoned for 
such a bull — and rose in a chattering shriek, but the band 
soon re-asserted itself. The cause of all this noise was the 



A RAILWAY JOURNEY 199 

departure of a general and his family. From a further 
acquaintance with these people I am sure it was a send-off' 
after their own hearts. We noticed that a great deal of 
luggage seemed to be left on the platform, and chuckled to 
think how well our own arrangements had been made. 

The train has a long narrow corridor running down one 
side, and the first-class coupes are arranged either for two — 
Avith one long seat, the back of which is raised to form a 
second bed at night — or for four, with the seats facing each 
other as in an ordinary railway carriage at home. No linen 
or pillows are provided, but the mattresses are very com- 
fortable. At one end is a small lavatory, common to both 
sexes, and at the other a restaurant car. There is a dinner 
in the middle of the day a prix fixe — generally one rouble — 
and other meals can be had a la carte. This seems to be the 
usual arrangement throughout Siberia in steamers and along 
the railway line. The charges in hotels are rather more (one 
rouble twenty-five kopecks for a dinner of three courses, and 
1.50 for four), but as tea and bread are charged extra on the 
railway, it brings the total to much the same. A supper of 
one meat dish on steamers and in trains costs from eighty 
kopecks to one rouble. Breakfast of tea, bread, cakes, and 
perhaps butter, is forty kopecks. Afternoon tea the same. 
On the river steamers one can pay by the day (two roubles 
twenty-five kopecks), which includes everything — tea ad 
libitwm. These, of course, are the prices in eastern Siberia ; 
on the train de luxe, which runs from Moscow to Irkutsk 
they are slightly higher. Considering the quality of the food 
and the way in which it is served, the charge is ample. 
Dinner consists of thick soup, of cabbage or potato, usually 
swimming in grease, and containing large lumps of meat. 
Well made, this cabbage-soup is very good. Then follows a 
meat dish, with potatoes, mushrooms, or macaroni mixed 



200 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



up with it, and after that some innocuous sweet, such 
as lemon jelly or ice-cream. On the railway and in 
hotels \'arious kinds of fish can be had, and these are very 
good, but are not provided on the steamers. Fruit one never 

sees, nor fresh vegetables. 
The railway restaurants are 
not clean or well appointed, 
but it does not hurt the 
waiter's feelings if one wipes 
the plate and knife with 
one's serviette before using 
them. Meals on the Amur 
steamers are served in a 
small and crowded saloon, 
and for the Russian passen- 
gers bhey may be a feast of 
reason and a flow of soul, 
but for us they M'^ere a 
weariness to the flesh. The 
high-pitched chatter never 
ceases, and the table manners 
— but I must reserve a de- 
scription of them, and go back to the train, which is still 
standing in Vladivostock station. 

When we tried to get to our coupe we found the way 
blocked by innumerable bundles and parcels. Every now and 
then a stout lady got irretrievably wedged between the wooden 
partition and a Russian orderly or European coolie with more 
bundles. No matter how many people were clamouring and 
shoving in that passage some one else — laden with more 
packages — would climb in and endeavour to squeeze past. 
Russians travel with innumerable small packages and very 
few big ones. They always take bedding, pillows, kettles, and 




A RAILWAY JOURNEY 201 

numberless other impedimenta. Everything small enough to 
get through the door is taken in coupe or cabin, and these are 
piled high with baskets, bundles of bedding, paper parcels, 
small bags, tin kettles and pans, dogs, cats, and birds in cages. 
Certain formalities must be gone through with regard to 
heavy boxes, but I am not in a position to describe these, as 
Andrew oinitted the formality with consequences hereafter to 
be described. 

For some time the line runs along the edge of the bay to 
the north of Vladivostock. There is nothing remarkable to 
see, save perhaps a little pork-pie island, with neither wood 
nor water, where for some time twenty convicts were kept. 
On the shores of the bay, too, lies a coal mine, where for eight 
years the Russians picked away, abandoning it wherever they 
came to water. Now an English firm has it, and is at work on 
a ten-foot seam — with " enough in sight for thirty years," as 
one of them told us gleefully. Being the only coal mine at 
work in the district it supplies most of the fuel for this 
railway. 

Soon the line leaves the bay and, passing through some 
thinly wooded hills, emerges on a vast plain-land. On either 
side the landscape rolls away in green sweeps, till it reaches a 
faint line of blue hills in the distance. Little brown towns 
are scattered here and there along the way ; some convict 
villages, others settlements of colonists. We draw up frequently 
at wooden stations, where trim log houses, with ornamental 
roofs and white- washed shutters give an air of smartness belied 
by the grimy interior. Groups of peasants — the women in 
bunchy cotton skirts, loose bodices and be-kerchiefed heads, 
for all the world like Irish colleens, but not half as pretty ; 
the men in loose blouses, embroidered perhaps on wristband 
and front, and wearing the inevitable sapogi and cliapika 
(peaked cap) — stand or squat about the stations. They 



202 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

bring milk in bottles, loaves, buns, and other eatables, which 
are eagerly bought by the passengers. All along the route, 
Avhether by rail or boat, one can buy milk, bread, and some- 
times eggs and butter, and this we did, preferring to have 
breakfast and supper in our own coupe or cabin. With a little 
spirit-lamp we made tea, cocoa, cooked eggs, and even soup. 
We enjoyed our al fresco meals very much — but I am not 
sure that I shall ever want to go to a picnic again ! 

Over these solitary, silent plains, whose loneliness is only 
accentuated by the isolated brown villages and the pert little 
stations, planted at intervals along the great black snake of 
railroad, comes a fresh and delightful breeze — the wind of 
wide spaces still untrodden by man, laden with the fragrance 
of grass and flowers. A Russian officer, who came with us 
from Nagasaki, filled his lungs and spread out his arms, con- 
fiding to us that this space and bareness were to him a 
thousand times more beautiful than the crowded prettiness of 
Japan. The sun dropped like a globe of molten gold behind 
the horizon, the distant hills turned from pale blue to deepest 
indigo, and a chilly breeze crept up. When the sun rose 
again the following morning we were creeping through a 
country of grey mist and silver cobwebs, and as these faded 
little by little in the golden rays we saw we were passing 
through Avoodlands, once a forest, where the stately trees have 
been felled to provide fuel and sleepers, and blackened stumps 
are all that remain to tell of what they once were. This is a 
sight with Avhich we soon became so familiar that it ceased 
to be noticeable, but of the wanton destruction of forests I 
must write later on. 




CHAPTER XVI 

A DAY AT KHABAROVSK 

Of lost luggage — Our friend the lieutenant — In quest of a 
bed — What we found — A successful interview — A contrite 
ofl&cial — ^We leave with eclat 

FTER loitering not unpleasantly along the line 
for thirty-one hours, we reached Khabarovsk. 
Leave out the " K " in pronouncing this and all 
other Russian names beginning with " K " and 
then you will show that you have " been there."" 
There is no reason why the journey from 
Vladivostock to Khabarovsk should take so long. It used to 
take twenty-six hours, and if the line is not strong enough to 
bear that speed it would be easy to save the extra time out 
of the waits at stations. Khabarovsk is merely a military 
post, situated at the point where the Amur, having hitherto 
flowed due east, makes a bend and takes a northern direction 
on its path to the ocean. Now that the railway through 
Manchuria is practically complete there is no need to make 
this detour, or visit Khabarovsk at all, but at the time of our 
journey it was still necessary to bridge the uncompleted 
break in the Trans-Siberian-Manchurian line by a steamer 
journey from Khabarovsk to Stretensk. 

When we had unpacked ourselves from the train, Andrew 



204 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

went in search of our heavy baggage, \\hich consisted merely 
of one larse trunk and one steamer-chair. Both were con- 
spicuous by their absence. A Russian officer, Lieutenant C, 
came to the rescue, but in vain. My only trunk had been left 
sitting on the platform at Vladivostock ! I had a dressing- 
bag, with one change in it, and a hat-box, into which I had 
crammed a few clean blouses. Andrew had a portmanteau, and 
was fairlv independent except for his dress-clothes, which were 
in the missing trunk. Telegrams were sent and assurances 
received that the derelict was following at once ; but I may as 
well say here that it A\'as two months after our arrival in 
England before our trunk turned up, and that the cost of its 
solitary journey across Asia to Moscow and thence to 
Hamburg, from Hamburg to Hull by sea and from Hull to 
London, was £1 IO5. At some period of its journey a kind 
friend had it sewn up in sacking, and it arrived with only one 
hole in the top and absolutely intact as to contents, which had 
never been disturbed. 

Not being able to foresee this happy denoument, I was 
considerably upset by the loss of my wardrobe. Then it 
began to rain, and Lieutenant C. pointed out that we were 
five versts from the town, and had to find lodgings for the 
night. He had already sent his soldier-servant on with his 
baggage and ours in a cart, and now we could only get one 
in which it was quite impossible for all three to ride. In 
the end he and Andrew walked while I drove in solitary state. 
There was no road, only innumerable wheel- tracks over a 
series of muddy plains and hills. Sometimes we lurched on 
one side, then on the other. The rain continued steadily, 
and Andrew and the officer kept up a conversation in the most 
broken French imaginable, that being their only means of 
communication. At last we reached the town, which consists 
merely of wide roads like ploughed fields, with straight rows 



A DAY AT KHABAROVSK 205 

of wooden houses and a wooden pathway on either side. The 
next discovery was that every inn, every podvoria, every con- 
ceivable place, indeed, was full. We had a note of introduc- 
tion to a German firm, but the manager could not offer us 
hospitality since his house was in the hands of painters and he 
himself was living in one room. To cut a long story short, I 
sat in that carriage for four hours — from five to nine o'clock, 
while Andrew and Lieutenant C. endeavoured to find a 
lodging for us. At last they called on the Chief of Police, 
and he, after a good deal of grumbling, sent out a sergeant to 
find us a room. Our German friend then invited us to partake 
of his supper, and Lieutenant C. departed to the Military 
Club, where in company with several other young officers he 
spent the night in the billiard-room. His conduct throughout 
was admirable, as he stuck to us and would never leave us 
until he felt sure we should be all right. 

At ten o'clock the sergeant retm-ned and piloted us to an 
inn, where we were shewn a sort of passage, boarded at either 
end to make a room. It contained a table and a great 
number of candlesticks, but nothing else. We sat down on 
the table and awaited developments. Very soon an extremely 
small iron bedstead was brought in. Three planks were fitted 
across it, and a thin mattress and pillow placed at the top. 
Then a jug and tin basin were brought in by a dirty-looking 
Chinese servant, and we were left to contemplate our quarters. 

The impossibility of both of us sleeping on that bedstead 
was obvious, but we were perfectly helpless, as we knew no 
Russian and the people of the inn spoke no language save 
their own. As soon as things were fairly quiet, however, we 
stole out into a corridor where we had espied a sofa, and 
seizing it with the strength of despair we carried it in and 
hastily bolted the doors. Then we composed ourselves to 
sleep, and the fleas began to wake up. 



206 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Very early the next morning we got up and performed cur- 
sory ablutions in the tin basin. Then, having made ourselves 
as presentable as circumstances would allow, we went out to 
seek the Governor-General, to whom we had a letter from the 
Russian minister at Tokio. Unfortunately, although we had 
this introduction, we hadn't got it with us ! It had been 
placed in the missing trunk ; but we had a duplicate letter 
addressed to the Governor of Vladivostock, which we had not 
delivered at that place, and we felt that, if we could get to 
General GrodekofF, who is Governor of Eastern Siberia, 
and let him see the nice things the Russian minister had 
said about us, we should be all right. It was with the 
prospect of having to explain the rather tangled situation in 
a foreign language that we presented ourselves at the palace 
at the earliest hour possible. The palace was a barrack -like 
building, and, inside, the polished floors and clean white- 
washed walls gave it the air of an hospital. 

In the entrance-hall several orderlies inquired our business, 
so we looked as grand as we could and said, " Aide-de-camp ! " 
Presently a stiff young staif officer appeared, and to him Ave 
bowed, and Andrew began an address in his best French. 
To our surprise he shook his head and signified that he didn't 
understand. We tried German — in vain ! This was rather 
discouraging, and our hearts fell when the young man, taking 
our cards and regarding them from all points of view as if to 
be quite sure that they were not dynamite bombs, depai'ted 
suddenly without a word. 

After a few minutes a gorgeous little man appeared, in 
blue and gold uniform, with a broad red stripe on his 
trousers, his chest all over medals, and a cross hanging round 
his neck. He addressed us in very good French, and asked 
our business, and Andrew replied that he had a letter to 
present to the Govern or- General. " Allow me to take the 



A DAY AT KHABAROVSK 207 



letter," said the little man, whereupon I nudged Andrew 
violently, to intimate that if he gave up the letter (the w7'ong- 
letter!) we were lost, since it would be returned to us with the 
remark that it was not intended for the Governor-General at 
all. Andrew rose to the occasion, and in execrable French 
announced that it was 
his desire to present 
the letter " moi-meme.^'' 
The little man with- 
drew, and I felt con- 
vinced that his suspi- 
cions Avere aroused, and 
that we should imme- 
diately be arrested as 
Nihilists. When the 
aide - de - camp reap- 
peared, I was just pre- 
paring to fall on my 
knees and protest our 
innocence, when he 
beckoned us to follow — ^whither ? Visions of dungeons rose 
before my eyes, and it was with immense relief that I saw a 
door open, and perceived beyond it a large, pleasant room, 
with polished floor, walls hung with execrable pictures, and 
very little furniture save a large writing-table, at which was 
seated a little owl-like man in spectacles. His uniform was 
like that of the other little man, but he had even more 
medals and stars. It was General GrodekofF himself. I had 
read of the exploits of this dashing cavalry officer in his 
earlier days, and had associated the hero of Grodekoff's 
celebrated ride to Khiva with visions of a big, wild Berserker 
sort of man. Here, however, was a polite, quiet little 
spectacled gentleman, who bowed, and, in broken French, 




208 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 



asked us to be .seated. Excellent soldier and commander as 
he is, General Grodekoff is not very popular in Eastern Siberia, 
for his retiring habits and love of quiet make Khabarovsk a 
dull place. He is toiijours triste, the young officers say, and 

does not encourage dancing, drink- 
ing, or play-acting. 

We gave the letter and explained 
the superscription as well as we 
could. Somewhat to our surprise he 
seemed to grasp the situation. We 
then told him of our adventures the 
previous night, and he expressed 
nmch regret and asked w^hat he could 
do for us. " Get us a passage on 
the boat leaving this afternoon,*" we 
said boldly. We had been told that 
every place was taken and that we 
must wait five days for the next boat. 
We told the Governor this. He 
smiled sweetly. II faid arranger^ 
il fold arranger^ he murmured, 
and ringing a bell sent some message 
by an orderly. He then informed us that the Chief of 
Police would see to our comfort in the future, and after a 
little chat about our journey we took our leave. 

Full of triumph we departed to the Khabarovsk Hotel, 
where we had arranged to lunch with Lieutenant C. The 
hotel is a quite pretentious building, stone-faced, with properly 
furnished rooms. About an hour afterwards, as we were 
taking a walk along the wooden trottoir, the Chief of Police 
came flying after us. He was a tall man, with fierce, white 
moustaches, and wore full uniform, with his grey overcoat 
slung; from his shoulders as the Russian fashion is. With 




A DAY AT KHABAROVSK 209 

immense empressement he saluted Andrew, and on being^ 
presented to me kissed my hand — or rather a very dingy 
glove. From the contrast between his behaviour now and 
the night before I gathered that he had received a wigging for 
not attending better to our distinguished selves. He now 
assured us of his consternation and regret that Madame 
should have passed so uncomfortable a night, and said that 
all was arranged for our immediate departure by the afternoon 
boat. An orderly had been sent to look after us and our 
luggage, and would await our commands. We graciously 
thanked him, and remarked that we would say no more about 
the previous night. I hope I am not a snob, but on occasions like 
this I am afraid I come perilously near to it, and, like Leonora 
of old, I walked on, my head a little higher than usual. 

It was indeed a relief not to be compelled to stay in 
Khabarovsk, which is a mere military mushroom and offers 
no distractions to a visitor. The hotel is not uncomfortable 
if one can get into it, but the crowds of military constantly 
passing through the town make every place very crowded. 
Besides the hotel, palace, military casino, and the most hideous 
church I have ever seen (of bright red brick, pointed with 
white and having a grass-green roof), there is nothing but 
rough wooden houses, and these, laid out in straight lines, 
with a wide muddy space, dignified by the name of road, 
between them, make about the ugliest town I have ever seen. 
A short di'ive in Khabarovsk is quite sufficient excitement 
even for me, for the hilly, uneven roads resemble nothing but 
ploughed fields, and one bumps and lurches till it is a marvel 
how the wiry little ponies keep their legs. 

The one dissipation of this place, which would be hopelessly 
dreary were it not for the constant va et vient of officers in gay 
uniforms, is to watch the arrival and departure of the steam- 
boats, and accordingly a big crowd assembled to see us off". 



CHAPTEK XVII 

ON THE AMUR 

Of river steamboats — Travelling companions — Russian chil- 
dren — English as she is spoke — Of Cossack villages — Bla- 
govesfcchensk — Russian piety — Folk songs — Flowers — The 
Shilka river — Convicts 

UK boat was crowded, not only the first 
and second class cabins, but the deck, on 
which numbers of third-class passengers 
camped out. Many officers who could 
not get cabins took third-class tickets 
and tipped the steward to let them sleep 
in the saloon, or in the cabin of some 
servant, and one who could not arrange 
this on the Baron Korf sat up all night 
and slept during the day in the berth of a comrade. Most 
of the Russian families were accompanied by soldier-servants, 
and these generally had a little camp by themselves. There 
was an extraordinary lack of method about all arrangements. 
At the last minute a heavy bribe or influential interference 
would procure a berth on the most crowded boat, and 
consequently the possession of a first-class ticket taken weeks 
beforehand did not ensure a first-class passage. When it 
came to changing from the large steamer which conveys one 




ON THE AMUR 211 

as far as Blagovestchensk to one of lighter draught it was 
simply a matter of sauve qui peut, and Avhen, as in our case, 
this light steamer had again to be exchanged for a sort of 
barge with still less accommodation, all dignity went to the 
Avnids, and it was a fight and scramble to be first on board, 
and having got there, to pounce on a cabin, and, planting 
one's bag on the berth, refuse to be ejected ! A man has 
little chance on such occasions, for the ladies will hustle him 
out ; and, having once taken possession, a woman can sit in 
safety, and no one but the captain of the ship can make her 
budge. The reason for changing boats was the shallowness 
of the river, which necessitated less and less draught as the 
upper reaches were penetrated. We unfortunately were 
travelling at a bad time of year and at the end of a dry 
season, and consequently we were always sticking in the mud. 
The boatmen with long poles took soundings continually, 
and their monotonous voices singing out " Che-ti-re-py-att ! " 
made a constant accompaniment to the voyage. 

As for the steamers on which this river-journey Avas made, 
they are extremely simple of construction. A long saloon 
with a cabin opening out either side, or else a passage with a 
saloon at the end. The saloon contains a table, chairs, and a 
good many flies. On the Baron Korf the upper end was 
arranged as a drawing-room, and had padded chairs and a 
piano. On first seeing our cabin I was struck with its size, 
but this impression I afterwards discovered was due to the 
extreme simplicity of its furniture. Two long settees, one on 
either side, a small table, a spittoon and an ash-tray completed 
the appointments. Toilet operations were conducted in small 
lavatories, two of which were provided for the first-class saloon. 
Here a zinc basin received a trickle of cold water, and the 
accommodation, though it appears scant, seemed ample for 
the desires of the Russian passengers. The characteristic 



212 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Russian lavatory has a water tap which must be pressed all 
the time the water is to flow, and a basin with a hole and no 
plug. Not having a cork handy, and being unable to wash 
with one finger on the tap, I stopped up the hole with 
Andrew's shaving brush ! 

Despite the cramped quarters we managed to be quite 
comfortable in our cabins, both on the Baron Korf and the 
Putiatin, which took us onwards from Blagovestchensk. They 
were provided with square windows, from which we could 
admire the scenery, and we pic-nicked and read and wrote in 
some degree of priAacy. The most trying part of all journeys 
in boats is the intimate relations into which one is perforce 
thrown with people who may not be congenial. Of course, as 
we do not speak Russian, we were relieved from this to a 
certain extent, and if we desired conversation we could speak 
French, of which every one knows a little, or German, though 
Russians will not as a rule speak either unless they are spoken to. 
But the advantages of this aloofness were more than outM^eighed 
by the weariness of hearing at meals and on deck a constant 
chatter which was meaningless to us, and the harshness of 
Russian voices is trying to the nerves. The language itself, 
though a little guttural, is not ugly when spoken in a soft 
and refined manner, but the majority of our travelling com- 
panions made a most excruciating noise when they talked, and 
their conversational tone was raised to a pitch which would 
surprise even Americans. 

There were also a good many children on board, and while 
making every allowance for the tedium of the journey for them, 
it must be confessed that they bore out all we had heard of the 
spoiling of Russian children. When Kira lifts her soup- 
plate to her lips to drink, or when Sacha stretches out his 
fork and captures another piece of meat as the plate is carried 
away, there is only a reproving " Oh, Sacha ! " and " Oh, 



ON THE AMUR 213 

Kireschka ! " from the fond mamma ; and they monopohse 
conversation, take the only chairs in the room, and push in 
front when one is going down stairs. At the same time they 
are winsome and charming, and they know how to use their 
eyes and hps to gain indulgences from mamma. They have 
their meals with their elders and are helped first ; they come 
to table and leave it to run round the room, and are generally 
allowed to behave exactly as they please, and if reproved they 
pout and coax and are immediately rewarded with half- 
repressed smiles. The much-maligned American child is 
brought up under a discipline quite Spartan as compared with 
this, and I almost think I should prefer the hlase ten-year-old 
who offered to explain the nature of a sweepstake to Mark 
Twain. As for the adult passengers, I can only say that we 
received every kindness and attention, especially from the 
men — mostly officers going home on leave. One or two spoke 
French fluently, and all were very polite and kind in trans- 
lating for us. One man, an artillery captain, talked English, 
or something akin to it, but we had the greatest difficulty in 
understanding him until we discovered that his vocabulary 
had been acquired from two sources only — Dickens, and 
Jerome's "Three Men in a Boat." He had written on slips 
of paper and learnt by heart some three hundred words of 
which I subjoin a selection. Brazier, pageant, bloodthirsty, 
congealing, offspring, tremulous, sallied, rot, and lastly socle, 
which he assured me is in Dickens. 

The curious thing about Captain M.'s English was the fact 
that he did not know whether words were nouns, verbs or 
adjectives, and in most cases their meaning as used by him 
could only be discovered by a process of reasoning. 

" This dinner has sole dignity," he remarked to me one day. 
" Must devour what we will ! " The English of this, which I 
was only able to understand because I had got accustomed to 



214 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

this mode of speech, is—" The one advantage of this dinner 
is that we are not Hniited as to quantity, but can eat as much 
as we Hke ! " 

" I solemnise you ! " was a favourite phrase, signifying, " I 
congratulate you," and " I congealing " meant " I am cold," 
and " I tremulous,"' " I am afraid." I tried to give him 
English lessons, but found it difficult since he clung most 
pertinaciously to his own ideas of the meaning of certain 
words. Lozvering' was one of his selection from Dickens, and 
I could not persuade him that " He lowering " did not mean 
" He is sad," or that " you giddiness " was not the English 
for " you are giddy." The latter, he assured me, was in 
Jerome. " Offspring," he was firmly convinced, could be 
applied with equal accuracy to a child or the branch of a tree, 
and he convulsed me by references to my " spouse." Captain 
M., not having a cabin, slept on the floor of the saloon, and 
one night a sum of five hundred roubles was stolen from a 
little bag which he always kept by his side. Luckily he had 
transferred some other money to the pocket of his tunic only 
the day before. His way of announcing the loss was 
characteristic. 

"Ver' exciting history!" he remarked, as I shook hands 
with him. " My money is loose ! " 

But the climax was reached when, at a picturesque bend of 
the river, he waved his hand and turning to me with a smile 
remarked : " Superior pageant ! " 

Before I take leave of this delightful person, with whom we 
travelled as far as Irkutsk, and who insisted on standing us 
dinner on our last evening together, I nmst give his receipt 
for curing an attack of colic. " One wineglassful of strong 
pepper and water, and then a whole bottle of red wine drunk 
at a sitting " — mind, I do not personally recommend it. 

The scenery of the river during the first half of the 



ON THE AMUR 215 

journey — as far as Blagovestchensk — is flat and uninteresting, 
but a river can scarcely help being beautiful in these latitudes 
when the sun is glinting on it, and the blue sky and floating 
clouds reflect in its broad bosom as in a mirror. The sunsets 
are a never-failing delight, and so is the fresh, cool air of the 
morning. The nights are very cold. For many versts we 
moved placidly along, seeing nothing but banks fringed with 
willows, and an occasional wood station, where piles of 
chopped logs wait to be taken in, and little log cabins denote 
the presence of a Cossack settlement. These have been 
established all along the river at intervals of some twenty- 
five versts. Some of the larger ones have schools to which 
children come from a distance, but many of the colonists are 
too far oft", and grow up without knowing how to read 
or write. Many little farms, for the sake of better soil, 
are some distance from the river, and, therefore, from the 
station to which they belong. Here life must be lonely and 
monotonous indeed. A few acres are sown with corn and 
reaped during the short, hot summer ; wood has to be 
chopped for fuel, cows must be attended to, eggs collected 
and taken to the station for sale and exchange. As the 
steamer approaches, a little band of women and girls clad in 
scanty cotton garments, and often with bare feet, troop 
down to meet it, and bring bottles of milk, flat brown loaves, 
saucers of curdled cream, and baskets of eggs. Very little 
money, however, circulates in these villages ; usually there is 
one store, where inferior goods can be bought at exorbitant 
prices, but the people must live almost entirely on their own 
produce. Some of the big settlements have tidy-looking 
houses, with plenty of white paint on eaves and shutters, and 
flowers peeping through the windows. All have wooden 
churches, whose grass-green roofs make the one note of colour, 
but everywhere is the same air of lethargy and sleepiness. 



216 TAVO ON THEIR TRAA ELS 

Hardly a soul is to be seen in the rough, untidy streets, 
except where, here and there, men are building a fresh hut. 
Timber is strewn everywhere, and great charred stumps show 
that this clearins: was once a forest. The reckless waste of 
wood is a remarkable feature, and a sad one to a lover of 
trees. The primeval forests, which twenty years ago 
extended to the margin of the river on either side, have been 
ruthlessly destroyed in this province, until nothing but thin 
youno; woods remain. Until we were close to the Shilka, 
where wilder country begins, we did not see one giant tree, 
nor any dense forests. Wandering through the little birch 
woods which surround the settlement, one sees great trunks 
rotting where they fell, and the yearly consumption for fuel 
alone must be enormous. 

The settlements, it must be noted, are carefully peopled 
with Russians only. Even Poles, or those from the German 
districts of Russia, are not allowed. The colonists are all 
State-aided. They are brought out in batches and settled 
according to the directions of the General StaiF, and are each 
given thirty dessyatines of land, cattle, agricultural implements, 
and an advance of money, which is nominally repayable in a 
term of twenty years. They have the right to chop wood 
for building and fuel, which, as I have said, is ruthlessly 
abused. Under such conditions very large numbers have 
been introduced into the Amur region and the Primorsk 
province north of Vladivostock. During the last two years 
the numbers have been increased, reaching the enormous 
annual figure of nearly 300,000. Large as this number seems, 
it is merely a drop in the ocean. Enormous tracts of rich 
and beautiful country lie waiting for the hand of the cultivator. 
I have noted how the loneliness of the plains is accentuated 
by its little isolated towns, and the same feeling prevails in 
this river journey. Here and there a few log huts, twenty or 




ON THE AMUR.— A COSSACK VILLAGE. 



ON THE AMUR 217 

thirty people, and a few cattle, and then for miles silence and 
emptiness. We hear on all sides that despite — perhaps because 
of — the liberal help given by the State, the colonists are not 
settling down into a thriving agricultural population as was 
hoped. In the plain country wherever they can employ cheap 
Chinese or Korean labour they do so, although it eats up their 
profits. Elsewhere they simply do as much as is necessary to 
keep themselves alive, and are entirely without enterprise or 
energy. The impression of dead-aliveness given by the villages 
is no false one. The people live the lives of brute beasts, 
have no education, no amusement, save perhaps to listen to 
a, crazy accordion or musical box, and but one change of 
clothes in the year. Their chief distraction is the consumption 
of vodka, and that, fortunately, can only be had in limited 
quantities. 

Early on the morning of the eighth day of our journey 
across Asia we arrived at Blagovestchensk, a town of con- 
siderable size. Having to wait two and a half davs for the 
departure of the mail steamer of lighter draught that was to 
convey us to Stretensk, we stopped at a very decent hotel, 
where a French manager and a French cook assured us of 
a certain amount of comfort, although I am not able to vouch 
for the veracity of the statement on the cards : " One speak 
Englisch." Here, as everywhere along the river, we hardly 
ever saw a vegetable, except potatoes and tinned mushrooms, 
and no fruits save the Canadian tinned ones. It is difficult 
to understand why this should be so, and I can only conclude 
that Russians are too careless about their food to grow fruit 
and vegetables themselves, and that they have never encour- 
aged the Chinese to do so. All provisions are dear, as is 
natural under such circumstances. 

The town is perfectly flat, and the broad roads stretch out 
in interminable perspective — or would do so were they not 



218 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

obstructed by clouds of dust. There are villages on the 
outskirts, and a market is held in a large square once a 
week to which the peasants bring their produce, lumbering 
in A\ith their clumsy carts and bony horses. There can be 
little architectural beauty in such towns as these, where the 
majority of the houses are one-story, wooden buildings, with 
walls of unhewn logs, staring white-silled windows like wide- 
opened eyes, and no other decoration than a sort of fringe of 
fretworked wood hanging from the eaves and also painted 
white. Some of these houses, with flowers in their windows 
and a plentiful supply of white paint splashed about, have an 
air of pert smartness, like a Cockney servant-girl on Sunday ; 
but their lack of relation to each other gives a spotty, 
unfinished appearance, only heightened by the half-dozen 
fine brick buildings which tower among them like whales 
among minnows. Blagovestchensk, in its long main street, 
down which one may drive for half an hour without reaching 
the end, has many such big, showy buildings — public offices, 
shops, and official residences. In style they are a cross between 
early Victorian and Byzantine — solid and florid. The churches 
are enclosed in little green patches with a few trees, from 
amongst the foliage of which rise red brick or white stucco 
walls ; and the emerald green and Prussian blue of domes and 
minarets put trees and sky to the blush. The interiors of 
these churches are full of colour and gilding. It was Sunday 
when we were there, and we went into one and heard the 
beautiful chants of the Greek church, sung by some good 
male voices, rolling up to the domes and dying away in long- 
drawn monotones. The priests, with long hair falling over 
flowing golden vestments, looked very different to the 
dirty, touzled men we had seen in the streets and on the 
boats. The Siberian peasant at prayer has an expression of 
absorption I have never seen equalled, and his rough hair 



ON THE AMUR 



219 



falling over his forehead, his deep-set eyes fixed as it were 
on eternity, and his large rough hands for ever busy with the 
sacred sign, seem to add to the impressiveness of his devotion. 
Every now and then he falls on his knees and presses his 
forehead with fervour to the 
stone floor. 

The day after our arrival 
we saw a procession in com- 
memoration of the visit of 
the Czar, then Czarevitch, 
ten years ago, to lay the first 
sod of the railway. The 
procession was entirely of a 
religious character, and the 
decorous behaviour of the peo- 
ple most striking. In the 
midst walked a grey-bearded 
bishop, in mitre and golden 
vestments, and around him 
was a group of priests, all 
alike in garments of golden tissue that blazed in the sun. 
Beside all this gold the dark uniform of Governor-General 
Gribsky, and his splendid white head, with snowy beard and 
dark eyes, stood out impressively. Soldiers lined the road, 
and as the church door opened from which the procession was 
to emerge, every head was bared along the line and in the 
crowd. Slowly it swept down the road, banners in front, and 
a military band playing a solemn chant in muffled tones. 
The crowd followed, and the soldiers fell into rank and 
marched after, every head still bare in the blazing sunshine. 
Clouds of dust swept up and nearly choked us, but all 
around were serious, intent, and orderly. When the triumplial 
arch which faces the river was reached a solemn service was 




220 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

held, but we, on the outskirts of the crowd, could see nothing 
save the top of the bishop's mitre and General Gribsky's 
white hair, so we went away, leaving them still uncovered 
to the burning sun and oblivious to choking dust. 

As we sat in our room in the Grand Hotel and looked out 
on a white dusty road, on which the only sign of life was a 
group of isvostcMks waiting for hire — the drivers slumbering 
on their boxes and the horses flicking their tails to keep away 
the flies, like weary drivers and tormented horses all the 
world over — we picked up a French paper some three weeks 
old, and read the heroics of a journalist starting on a tour 
round the world, who, among the perils likely to beset him, 
spoke of this region as " a country still in a state of war."" 
London papers made a similar remark, but, alas! the 
cheapest renown cannot be gained by this journey, which is 
being made every day by dozens of Russians, men, women, and 
children, and the most enterprising of journalists Avill find no 
" war,"" unless he likes to go into the heart of Manchuria and 
pick a quarrel with the banditti who still infest it. 

In all Siberian towns the German element is considerable. We 
found that language extremely useful, and to our knowledge of 
it were indebted for a pleasant evening at Blagovestchensk, 
when we dined with a German gentleman, and went afterwards 
to a very excellent concert of Russian folk-songs. The big 
rooms, handsome carpets and hangings and solid furniture of our 
host were very pleasant to us after many days spent in small 
and dingy saloons, and so was the good dinner, quietly and 
decently served. The method pursued on the steamboats of 
dumping down on the table a big soup tureen, or plate 
of meat and vegetables, from which every one helps himself 
and his neighbours, is anything but appetising, and even 
travelling in the Philippines has not reconciled me to taking 
salt and pepper on the point of my knife ! 



ON THE AMUR 221 

The concert was held in a little theatre, and both music and 
singers were good. The songs of Little Russia are some of the 
prettiest in the language ; many are Tsigane or gipsy songs, and 
have the wild melancholy and abandon always peculiar to the 
strange Romany people. I was struck by something virile and 
original in these airs, which abound in quaint unexpected turns 
and plaintive minor melodies. I wonder these songs have never 
been exploited in England ; Tchaikowsky and some others have 
used many of the airs in their compositions, but a few of these 
spirited and pathetic ballads would surely be a welcome 
innovation in our somewhat limited concert programme. 

Leaving Blagovestchensk, we again journeyed up the river, 
and owing to the lowness of the water took thirteen instead 
of eight days to reach Stretensk, This long journey up the 
Amur was not without its compensations. During the best 
part of the time the weather was beautiful. Hot in the 
middle of the day, it was fresh and bright in the mornings 
and evenings, while the nights were refreshingly chilly. 
Every now and then the monotony was varied by a stop at 
some little wooden village, where we could stroll, buy milk 
and bread, and pick flowers. The flowers which abound all 
along this route are certainly one of the most pleasant 
features of the journey. The plains are covered with them. 
Peasants bring great bunches of pink scented peonies, yellow 
lilies, and lilies of the valley, which they sell for a few 
kopecks. Along the river banks they grow even more 
luxuriantly, and at every stoppage passengers go ashore and 
come back laden. In one little wood, within a few yards, we 
found three species of lilies — lilies of the valley and red and 
yellow " lilies of the field " — forget-me-nots, wild roses, 
peonies, anemones, hyacinths, clematis, yellow and white 
poppies, marsh-mallows, yellow and white ox-eye daisies, 
buttercups, irises, and many other flowers of whose English 



222 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

names I am ignorant. Wild strawberries, herbs, and grasses 
grow thickly, but until we had almost reached the Shilka, we 
saw very few ferns. The wholesale destruction of big trees 
has extinguished these, and the thin woodlands with their 
Howery carpet have no air of tropical luxuriance, but are full 
of the sweet freshness and tranquil prettiness of English 
woods. Beautiful butterflies and moths flit among the 
trees, and wonderfully marked beetles crawl on the coarse 
grass. I am no naturalist, but it seemed to me that in 
brilliance of colouring and variety of design the insect w^orld 
vied with the flowers. We heard the cuckoo in these woods, 
but not many singing birds. 

On the lower reaches of the river, below Blagovestchensk, 
the scenery, as I have remarked, is somewhat tame and flat. 
As one ascends, however, a certain mild beauty creeps into 
the landscape. Grey rocks heave up their sides from the 
green earth, and break the placid surface of the river with 
sharply outlined reflections. The river twists and turns con- 
stantly, and the ever-changing perspective of its curves is 
delightful to watch. At night fires are lighted at intervals 
along the shore, as well as the beacon lights that twinkle here 
and there. The fires are of wood, and blaze Math one clear 
ruddy flame, sending a great band of light across the river. 
Mysterious figures hover round, feeding the flames ; shadows 
dance across the shingled bank, and the scene is weird and 
Dantesque. But when the Amur divides into two streams, of 
which we followed the Shilka, the course is through rup-ffed 
mountains, round steep cliffs and between the Avails of gorges. 
Here we witnessed a curious phenomenon. The forest fires 
had swept down to the river banks, and for two days the sky 
was darkened and the whole scene obscured as if by a thick 
grey veil. It looked as if we were floating on a huge grey 
lake, still and silent, broken only into streaks of silver by the 




ON THE SHILKA RIVER. 



ON THE AMUR 223 

little towing-steamer in front of us. On either hand loomed 
indistinctly great grey masses, which resolved themselves as 
we drew near into rocks with almost perpendicular faces, 
broken and castellated at the top. These rocks were fringed 
and crowned with the lightest of firs and birches, and the 
slender ^\'hite trunks of the latter gleamed against the grey 
and green. It was a symphony in grey and green, faintly 
warmed towards midday by the sun, which looked like a red 
ball high in the sky. The air was still and hea\y, the ^ater 
like oil, and despite a certain fascination in the misty, fairy- 
like scene, we were much relieved when we gained a clearer 
atmosphere. The river has the caprices of a spoilt child. 
Sometimes flowing in a strong narroA\' stream -where the current 
races like a mill-pond, at other times it spreads out like a lake 
and scarcely covers its shingly bed, which protrudes in dark 
spots from the rippling water. The monotony of existence was 
varied by the excitement of sticking on a shoal, when the 
steamer had to back, and puff, and turn about until she found 
enough water. One felt a sense of triumph as the bottom 
of the boat, after grating for a few minutes, slid slo^\•ly off, 
and M^e were again going ahead. Alas ! this triumph was too 
frequently changed for impatience, when we m ere stuck for 
hours and unable to move. Lieutenant C, unable to get a 
place in our boat, left Blagovestchensk the day after us, in a 
small trading-steamer, passed us some five days later as we 
stuck in the mud and was overtaken again some 150 versts 
from Stretensk. It was difficult not to be pleased at his mis- 
fortune — we had gnashed our teeth, thinking hoA\- much ahead 
of us he must be. The banks of the river, with their pointed 
rocks, deep valleys and fringe of fir-trees, are as beautiful as 
the Tyrol, and not unlike it. Were this river only navigable 
for decent steamers, or were the arrangement of the barges 
more comfortable, this portion of the journey might have been 



224 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

very pleasant. But the barge was smaller and more incon- 
venient than the steamers, while the number of passengers was 
the same, and the cooking and service worse in proportion. 
These barges are not, of course, like those used for immigrants, 
which have only a covered deck and small cooking-place. 
They are divided into classes and have cabins, but the accom- 
modation is very poor. We passed several batches of immi- 
grants, and one of army recruits, floating slowly down stream, 
and also two convict barges. The latter are a sad sight, the 
convicts being mostly felons with life sentences on their way 
to the silver mines at Nertchinsk. The barge is boarded up 
at both ends into cabins with small windows, and the centre 
is like a roofed cage. The convicts were moving about in 
this, and in one a woman was washing and ironing. They 
stood at the grating shading their eyes from the sun as their 
sight strained after the world they were leaving behind, and 
across the Avater came an ominous sound — the clanking of 
their chains. Probably many deserved the fate awaiting them, 
but amid the flowers and the sunshine one could only sigh for 
them and say " the pity of it ! "^ A more cheerful sight was that 
of the many rafts, some mere logs tied together, on which the 
men had built a small shelter, others resembling a floating 
back yard and crowded with horses, cows, men and women, 
with little tents and huts, and an abundance of green stuff" 
piled round for the cattle to' eat. Forty or fifty horses are 
taken down on one raft, where there seems only room for them 
to stand. It is wonderful to see how quietly they behave. 

Along the north bank of the Shilka runs a military road, 
constructed in 1899, at great cost, but too late to be of any 
service in transporting troops. It is cut sheer out of the 
sides of the rocks in places, and crosses ravines by means of 
neat wooden bridges ; only twice or thrice does it leave the 
banks and make a detour. 



CHAPTER XVIII 



ON THE TEANS-SIBERIAN 

On the train— Scenery— More flowers— Slothful Siberia- 
Lake Baikal— A great Siberian city— Luxury and discomfort 
—A choice of churches— The train de Zwice- Beautiful Siberia 
—The Urals— Little Eussia— Moscow 

'HE twenty-third day of our journey 
across Asia we arrived at Stretensk, till 
lately a mere Cossack stanitza, con- 
sisting only of a few wooden streets and 
half a dozen shops. The river has to be 
crossed on a primitive ferrybridge, and 
early the next morning we went across, 
took our places in the train and started 
for Irkutsk. The train itself was 
like that running from Vladivostock 
to Khabarovsk but not quite so 
good, for there was no restaurant 
car, and general dilapidation prevailed among the fittings. 
Provisions could be bought as before at the stations, and 
very fair food, for eating which ample time was given. We 
were neither bothered with flies nor mosquitoes, as we had 
been warned, but the heat during the first two days was 
rather trying; on the third came one of those changes of 

p 




*226 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

climate for which Siberia is remarkable, and after that it 
was cool, though bright. 

The first day after leaving Stretensk our course followed 
the Shilka, and the scenery was the most beautiful we had 
seen. The riA'«r valley with wooded hills, grey rocks jutting up 
in places and casting their images on the water, wide fertile 
plains, with purple horizon of hills ; many brown towns 
nestling along the river banks, and spreading out over the 
plains — these made a constant change in the panorama that 
unrolled itself, and then there were flowers, flowers every- 
where ! Every niche in the rocks has a tuft of purple or 
yellow blooms, every ditch or stream is smothered with their 
coloui" and fragrance, while the fields at times look like huge 
flower-borders along the railway lines. 

The next day we appear to be climbing up and up. On 
either side are hills covered with small fir trees. Fires have 
raged here, and the brown and withered stumps show the 
track of the destroyer, which in some places has swept right 
across the line. The third day we descend again, passing big, 
burnt up looking plains, till we come to a broad and gleaming 
river crossed by a fine iron bridge, and presently to the first 
town of any importance that we have seen — Vernhe-Udinsk. 
The white-washed buildings, tapering spires, and green domes 
stand up in relief against a background of blue hills, and it 
is pleasant to have a variation from the everlasting wooden 
shanty. 

Buriats, in clothes which are a curious compound of Chinese 
and Russian, watch the train from the platform. Here 
and there along the plain we see a settlement of their 
miserable huts, generally in the midst of a stockade for 
horses or cattle. As a rule there appears to be comparatively 
little cultivation going on around the towns, and it is extra- 
ordinary that one hardly ever sees a garden. The wooden 



ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN 227 

houses are surrounded by bare yards, enclosed in wooden 
fences, and no attempt is made to brighten these with a little 
greenery. Perhaps it is not considered worth while during 
the short summer. Two or three times only did we see a 
little patch sown with vegetables, and the lack of all these 
things is a true indication of the sloth and carelessness of the 
Siberian, who is contented to deface the work of God in a 
beautiful country in order to live there, not 
in comfort and decency but with the mere 
necessities of existence. 

Arriving at Lake Baikal, we crossed in 
an ordinary steamboat, the accommodation 
beina; decent and the food excellent. There 
is one boat, the Baikal, which takes the 
train — or at least fourteen waggons — across 
bodily, but this was working that day from 
the other side. This wonderful inland sea is surrounded by 
hills, and on one side by snow-capped mountains. It is cold 
here all the year round, despite a scorching sun in the middle 
of the day in sunnner, and in winter the cold is intense. 
The ice-breaker provided has not turned out altogether a 
success, and cannot contend with the thickness of the ice and 
the rapidity with which it forms. We crossed in smooth 
water in about three and a half hours, but the lake is sometimes 
lashed into terrible storms, and only the day before, the 
captain told us, the weather had been so bad that many 
passengers, men as well as women, came weeping to him and 
implored him to turn back ! Poor things ! Many of them 
had never seen the ocean, and had no idea of what a ship can 
do in the way of rolling. Soon we saw the village of 
Listvenitchnya straggling along the old post road at the side 
of the lake, and then the wooden jetties and brightly painted 
station, with the big, heavy-looking train waiting for us. 




228 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

A long wait at this station, where a good restaurant 
provides amply for one's material comforts, and then four 
hours in the train along the banks of the river Angara — 
through lovely and romantic scenery enhanced by the setting 
sun — and we see Irkutsk spread out on the opposite bank of 
the river, with many large imposing buildings and numerous 
spires and minarets — a real city at last ! 

Nearer acquaintance with this, the most important place in 
Siberia, reveals the same crudeness which characterises less 
ambitious towns like Blagovestchensk. Irkutsk has a grand 
theatre, with shabby inconvenienty6«/^r* ; handsome buildings 
flanked by streets of impassable mud ; and showy hotels whose 
interiors are devoid of every comfort, although provided wdth 
gilt candelabra and a string band to play during meals. The 
shops are numerous and the groceries seem good, as are wines, 
bread and other food-stuff's ; but the drapery, furniture and 
jewellery shops seemed to be stored with the shoddiest and 
worst of German manufactures, and paper screens, grotesque 
bronze figures, and brightly coloured glass vases are the only 
" objects of art " we were ever able to discover. The book 
shops are large and well stocked, and one can buy Tauchnitz 
editions of French and English authors. Some attempt at 
street decoration has been made by the erection at corners 
of large, solid, heavy kiosks, and much decoration is lavished 
on the stucco fronts of buildings. As for churches, they are 
legion, and one may choose between a sea-green church with 
coloured frescoes on the exterior, or a vermilion church with 
emerald-green domes and spires, not to mention numerous 
white, blue and green edifices whose brilliant colours dazzle 
the eye. I have a decided preference for the cathedral, which 
is merely a dull brick colour, and here very good music is 
heard. As night approaches the city takes a forbidding air, 
for all windows and doors are shut and barred, the shops with 





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ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN 229 

great iron clamps like those of a prison. Few people are seen 
about, for the streets are still unsafe in this convict city, and 
only here and there a shaft of light from an upper window 
tells one that the place is really alive. The roads spoil every- 
thing — these terrible roads — great pools of water stand at the 




corners, and without the wooden trotto'irs it would be im- 
possible to get about the city on foot. 

There is the nucleus of a very interesting museum and also 
of a small scientific library. Already a collection has been 
made of the costumes of different tribes in Siberia and Man- 
churia and of the wild animals in those regions. There are 
many schools and colleges also in this growing city, which is 
said to be the richest for its size in all Russia. It can count 
several millionaires as its citizens. 

From Irkutsk to Moscow is now a journey of less than 
eight days. There is some difference in the accommodation 



230 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

of the various trains, and the one by which we travelled (the 
Wag-on-Ufs) was not so commodious as the ordinary t7-ain de 
luxe belonging to the Siberian railway. The coupes were 
rather smaller, and there was no observation car or gynmasium. 
The " International " and the ordinary train de luxe run alter- 
nately once a week. Food is fairly good in the restaurant, and 
at some stations there are excellent buffets. 

The scenery on this section was a great surprise to me. I 
had been led to expect a great deal of barren steppe land, 
but this description only applied to about one-eighth of the 
journey, and the rest was so varied and beautiful as to provide 
continual entertainment. At first the emerald turf, gentle 
wooded slopes, tiny valleys, flower-bedecked glades, Avhere 
shimmering white-trunked beeches were thrown into relief by 
sturdy red-limbed cedars, and both threw flickering shadows 
across a mosaic of gold and purple blossoms — all this peaceful, 
verdant prettiness reminded one of parks and gardens in Old 
England. Then came a breezy stretch of rolling grass country 
dotted with herds of cattle, scarred here and there with great 
patches of ploughed earth, and cut with the shining lines of 
broad slow rivers. Many brown wooden towns — better built 
than any we had seen before, with little flo^\'er-gardens and 
plots of vegetables — are scattered over this country, and there 
are innumerable stations, to which come the peasant women 
with jars of milk, eggs and butter. Sometimes there are long 
wooden booths, in which quite an important market is held. 
Krasnoiarsk is passed, many green spires and big white 
buildings gleaming in the distance. Tomsk and Omsk are 
reached, great wide rivers are crossed, some on temporary 
bridges, for the work of reconstruction is going on, solid iron 
bridges being substituted for wood in many places. Then the 
flowers, which had hitherto bordered the line almost con- 
tinuously and spread in patches of yellow, mauve and pink 





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ON THE TRANS-SIBERIAN 231 

over the fields, begin to dwindle, until only the hardy ox-eye 
daisy survives. We emerge on a salt plain, flat and brown, 
with curious greyish patches, stretching out to illimitable 
distance without a break in the horizon. We have hardly 
got used to this and made up our minds that this must be 
a barren useless country, when numerous windmills become 
visible on the sky-line, and large herds of cattle are clustered 
in the foreground. We fall asleep and wake up in the Ural 
mountains, climbing up, up, up, amid wooded hills, valleys 
shrouded in mist, rocky, tumbling streams, and a tangle of 
flowers, wilder and richer than ever. There are villages 
nestling among these picturesque hills, cows and horses graze 
on the greenest of grass, and at a pretty little station, em- 
bowered in trees, we buy great baskets of wild strawberries. The 
Urals are so low, for all their extent and picturesque pretence of 
crags and fir-clad cones, that we do not pass through a single 
tunnel, and so wide that it takes the whole day and night 
before we leave them behind and are really in Europe again. 

The scenery during the two days between the Urals and 
Moscow has a beauty of its own. The country is one enormous 
cornfield, sweeping away on either side in folds and ripples 
and curves — nothing but corn. Corn still unripe with a 
silvery green shimmer ; corn in the golden ear flecked with 
the bright scarlet and faded pinks of reaping peasants, who 
straighten their backs and shade their eyes from the sun as 
the train rushes through their midst. Here and there a white, 
bleached field shows where the harvest is over and the dried 
stubble alone remains, and all round the fields runs a light 
and dainty fringe of blue cornflowers, their only demarcation. 
Every hill is crowned with windmills, whose quaint shapes 
and widespread arms are silhouetted against a turquoise sky. 
The villages in this part of Russia look like collections of 
hayricks. Wood is scarce, and they are made of mud and 



232 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

roofed with straw. In the midst of these brown and yellow 
humps one is quite surprised to see a white wooden church. 
Big towns are passed, with fine buildings and many churches ; 
gradually we emerge into a sort of suburb where the houses 
are of wood ; and then, at the end of a curve in the line, a dim 
vision arises of spires and domes, a sort of glittering reveals 
the gilded cupolas, the white buildings begin to shine — and 
with a rattle and a rush we arrive in Moscow. 

Were it only to see this most fascinating city the whole of 
this journey would be worth while. Moscow, of course, 
should be seen in winter, but under a blazing sky it has a 
barbaric splendour of its own. Mediaeval walls, gilded 
cupolas piled one above the other, quaint arches, coloured 
ikons, great white buildings, unexpected turns and twists of 
architecture, and everywhere a lavishness of decoration, a 
wildness of fancy and a bold freedom of colour which sound 
crude in description, but are in reality intoxicating in 
their daring effectiveness. There are pictures and music to 
be enjoyed, even in the summer, there are good hotels where 
all languages are spoken ; and there are enoiigh romantic 
and historic associations for half a dozen cities. 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE FINISH 



A bath at Moscow — Of droschky drivers and piety — Our view 
of the Kremlin — The way to see sights — Of languages — The 
ignorance of foreigners — ^Heimweh — Farewell to the East — 
Over the G-erman border — G-erman oflfiicials — A long day — 
Domestic scenes — Flushing — Boiled eggs and other delights 
of home — London again — Louisa on our travels — Of relations 
and friends — Vale ! 



NE of the earliest things we did at Moscow 
was to have baths — the first since we left our 
Japanese steamer at Vladivostock. We had 
got tolerably clean at Irkutsk (and might 
have gone to the public baths there, but felt 
doubtful about them) ; but, although the 
train de luxe had a very convenient little 
lavatory to each pair of compartments, there was no bath- 
room, and we had been looking forward to a real big bath 
with plenty of water. We were staying in a big, clean, 
German hotel, and a pleasant German mddchen prepared my 
bath and conducted me to it. It seemed to me somewhere in 
the direction of the kitchens, and when we got there I was 
much impressed by the size of the room. A large marble 
bath was at one side and a Ions: couch at another covered 




234 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

with thin linen towels, and a path of toA\els spread on the 
floor led from one to the other. Russians like their baths 
very hot, and the room was heated by a stove, so that I got 
thoroughly stewed. We were charged one and a half roubles 
(Ss.) for this luxury. 

The carriage fares are cheap in Moscow, but one must 
always bargain beforehand. The drivers in their rough beaver 
hats and enormously thick coats belted in at the waist are 
exactly like the pictures one is accustomed to. I mention 
this because popular pictures of foreign countries very seldom 
convey any ideas of the subjects they represent. The extra- 
ordinary thing is that these drivers are bundled up in thick 
wadded coats in the middle of summer, and summer in Moscow 
is almost tropical. The better the coachman the thicker his 
coat, and the smartest private carriages we saw were driven 
bv men who looked like enormous dark blue feather bolsters 
tied in at the middle. 

The most noticeable thing in the Moscow streets, next to 
the coachmen and droscliMes, is the piety of every one. Little 
shrines or ikons are fixed up everywhere— on the Avails of 
churches, over gateways, and at the corners of streets — and 
every time a Russian passes one of these he raises his hat, 
crosses himself fervently, and says a prayer. The droschky 
drivers go on doing this all the time regardless of their horses, 
and the more bold and bad they are the more they cross 
themselves and pray. It must be added that they take their 
hats right oft' and hold them in front during their devotions, 
so that a really pious driver hardly ever has his hat on his 
head. The foot passengers vary in their observances, but 
in front of every ikon are ahvays one or two devout people, 
with closed eyes, moving fingers, and murmuring lips. It is 
all very impressive and picturesque, and goes well with the 
architecture and mediteval air of the place, but one cannot 




A BIT OF MOSCOW. 



THE FINISH 235 

help ^\'ondering whether so mvich vain repetition is good for 
the soul. 

All my life long I had heard and read about the Krevilin 
at Moscow, but I had the haziest idea as to \\-hat it was. 
Even now I find it difficult to describe, for in my memory 
churches, nmsevnns, treasuries, vaults, cannons, palaces, and 
pictures are all mixed up together. We were rather handi- 
capped by not being able to get a French or German-speaking 
guide to take us round; but we had a little handbook in 
French, and we made out the different buildings as well as 
we could from this. After all it really didn't matter much 
which was which — we only ^\'anted to see them all; but 
Andrew, who has very little imagination and therefore likes 
to know the facts of a case, vexed my soul by reasoning that 
if so-and-so was the chapel of Peter the Great and the church 
of St. Something stood just opposite, then where was the 
palace of Somebody Else.? He would have enjoyed it far 
more if he had let me tell him (as I was quite ready to do) 
the names of everything and appropriate anecdotes out of my 
well-stored, if somewhat tangled, memories. 

Before I go to Moscow again Fm going to read up all about 
the Kremlin in an English book — somehow I get such a misty 
impression from P'rench and German ones, and so does Andrew, 
though he pretends not— and then I shall go over the buildings 
and settle for myself exactly what happened in each. By that 
means I shall extract the greatest amount of pleasure with the 
least amount of trouble, which is my idea of sight-seeing. 

Andrew says that nothing is worth anything unless it costs 
us something, and that therefore my plan won't pay. I 
suppose that is true, but there is such a thing as paying too 
dearly for one's pleasures, and I shall have to take some 
trouble in order to get to Moscow, so that that must be 
accounted to me as sufficient exertion. 



236 



TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 





RUSSIAN TTPES. 



Don't you feel all curled up soinetinies 
when you read of people learning a 
language in order to read some masterpiece 
that has fired their imaginations ? Stories 
like that make me feel very, very small 
— real mean, Americans would say. A 
long time ago patient and hard-working 
governesses knocked a little French and 
German into my head greatly against my 
will ; and in later years, being pitchforked 
into the society of people who knew no 
English, I have been forced to extend my 
knowledge of those tongues. I owe to a 
girlish affection for a German governess 
a quite irreproachable accent in her 
language, but my stock of words is 
limited. So long as I associate with 
voluble people I get on all right, but 
when conversation (on their part) flags I 
begin to flounder terribly. On the 
contrary, I speak French fluently, but 
with an execrable accent and a courageous 
disregard for idioms. Andrew is a great 
deal more ambitious than I in both 
tongues. He plunges into politics and 
metaphysics with the utmost sang-froid^ 
and never hesitates about using the 
horribly complex tenses which mean " I 
would or should have been." It is very 
seldom that his hearers contradict him 
on these occasions. Usually a puzzled 
look creeps into their faces, and they 
assent most politely. 



THE FINISH 237 

Talking to Russians in German or French is by no means 
easy unless they are particularly fluent ; but our friend the 
Lieutenant was always glad to exercise his French, as he had 
still to pass an exam, in it before entering the Staff Corps. 
He and I used to muddle along for hours, but as he was 
translating his ideas from Russian and I mine from English 
it was stiff going. Nothing is so salutary in travelling as to 
realise that, after all, we Britons are not, in any one''s eyes but 
our own, the most important part of Creation. Very few 
foreigners are as ignorant of our geography as we of theirs, 
but I confess Lieutenant C. reduced my conceit a little. To 
him Paris was the city of Europe, pai' excellence the place 
outside Russia which he desired to visit. " London — was it 
interesting ? A dull place, surely ; a commercial city covered 
in fog six months out of the year." My breath was simply 
taken away at such calumnies on the greatest city of the 
world, but it is useless to argue with a Russian — especially in 
broken French. 

Another day I told him my husband was a Scot, un 
Ecossais, and explained that Scotland was the country north 
of England. He inquired if the Scots spoke English. This 
is a moot point between Andrew and myself. I endeavoured 
to explain the situation, but apparently failed, since his next 
question was whether I learned my husband's language or he 
mine ! 

But all this time we are in Moscow, and I have done that 
most aggravating thing — like the novelist who speaks of the 
brilliant wit of his heroine but prints only her most vapid 
remarks — I have told you that Moscow is picturesque and 
interesting but never explained how or why. 

The fact is I am homesick ! All the time I am rattling 
over the crooked, stone-paved roads, past the great churches 
with their gaudy minarets and the curious old houses with 



238 TA¥0 ON THEIR TRAVELS 

peaked roofs, I am thinking of home — home — home. It is 
months since I saw a famihar face or heard a loved voice — 
save Andrew's. I am tired of exerting myself in unknown 
tongues, of wrestling with strange dishes, staring at fresh 
sights. I can think only that between me and home lies but 
a day and a halfs journey, and it is with intense excitement 
that I pack our meagre luggage for the last time on our 
journey. 

I am coming back to Moscow one day, and until then I 
won't insult it by crude descriptions. I shall have to come 
soon though, for already much of the barbaric colour that 
was so characteristic in the streets is disappearing, and the 
painted walls are whitewashed and the domes and minarets 
gilded. Moscow will always retain, however, a little of that 
curious Eastern flavour which is half its charm. Here in the 
heart of Europe we take farewell of the East, and our last 
view of the city shows us a blazing sapphire sky above the 
flashing golden domes. 

Our flrst break was at Warsaw, but despite the indescribable 
fascination which hangs around that name we did not stop 
save to change trains. Owing to an accident we could not 
get the wagon-lit which we had booked, and therefore had to 
make another change on the German frontier. The journey 
across Germany to Berlin was about the most unpleasant bit 
of our travels. To begin with, mc had with us in our carriage 
several small pieces of luggage a la Russe. A red- faced German 
conductor ordered its summary removal, but as the train was 
just starting and did not stop for several hours we were 
helpless. He came along at intervals and shouted at us, 
although we addressed him politely and even tried the silver 
key. Finally he had our things removed at Berlin— but not 
my dressing-case, my last remaining hope, for I sat on that— 
and Andrew with considerable trouble and several bribes got 




THE FINISH 239 

them registered through. The minute one is over the border 
one notices a change in railway officials and employes. In 
Russia they are stupid but polite and often painstaking, 
especially if it is made worth their while. The Germans on 
the contrary treat every one with the same brusqtcerie and air 
of military discipline. Our particular guard got purple in 
the face, and roared at us as though he were 
addressing an awk\^^ard squad on parade- 
ground. 

As the long day wore on, marked only by a 
series of very good meals in the restaurant 
car, we watched the country fly past, and 
came to the conclusion that if enormous cornfields were 
typical of Little Russia, cabbage-gardens stood for Germany. 
A picture, often repeated, which alone remains to me of what 
I saw that day, is a large cabbage-garden, a prim, straight 
little house standing in the middle of it, and, facing the 
railway-line at the end of a neat path, a little wooden 
arbom", in which an elderly gentleman in spectacles, without 
his coat, sits smoking a long pipe and drinking beer, while his 
fat, clean-looking spouse sits beside him knitting with grey 
worsted. There is a most domestic suggestiveness about 
German landscape as seen from the train. The towns looked 
bright, clean, and unpicturesque, the people much the same ; 
but I'm afraid we ourselves were none of these save the last. 
The dust, which had never troubled us on the Trans-Siberian, 
owing I think to the construction of the Avindows, seemed to 
get all over us now, and the more one washed the worse 
it got. At last the long day, which had begun at four 
o'clock A.M. at the German frontier, ended at about twelve 
midnight at Flushing. In a very short time we had streamed 
across to the steamer, and, despite my dismay at finding our 
cabin to be merely an inside box with no porthole or window. 



240 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 




only a ventilator at the top, we fell asleep directly, and did 
not Avake till the cliffs of old England were in sight. 

We had boiled eggs for breakfast — the first boiled eggs 
and the first breakfast worthy of the name, for we had of 
course been feeding in the Continental fashion, and Russian 
breakfasts are merely tea and rusks or bread and butter. 

r-. The most delightful sen- 

sation, however, was when the 
waiter addressed us in English 
— although the extent of his 
remarks was " Yessir ! "" Then 
the sound of clear, low-pitched 
English voices all round us, 
the salt-spoons and pepper- 
pot, everything which is so 
much a matter of course to 
us at home, struck us with a delightful sense of novelty and 
convenience. 

Then we warmed towards the polite attentive railway- 
officials, who touched their caps to Andrew (he looks like 
a Commander-in-Chief in his big Austrian great-coat) but 
did not expect to be tipped. I think there is no body of 
people in the world, except perhaps the metropolitan police, 
who are so polite and good-humoured and painstaking as 
railway-inspectors and guards. Porters are different, but 
even they earn their tips by patiently attending to so many 
foolish queries and carrying such piles of superfluous luggage. 
One appreciates these men after travelling abroad and 
wrestling with the stupidity of Russians and the rudeness 
of Germans. French railway people are neither rude nor 
stupid, but they never seem to understand their own language 
when I speak it to them, and they expect extortionate tips. 
Hop-fields — green lanes — peaceful villages with little 



THE FINISH 241 

square-towered churches — everywhere that air of snugness 
and homehness which is England''s great charm. And so 
till we got to the hideous environs of the great city, with 
rows on rows of mean streets, great ugly factories, huge sign- 
boards, and a tangle of railway-lines running this way and 
that. Then the tiresome wait at the station while our 
luggage is passed — while this was going on I sent a telegram 
and enjoyed changing a piece of nice bright English gold 
into nice bright English silver. It was quite an age since I 
had seen gold coinage, and I recollected how a countryw oman 
in China had admired some English sovereigns and asked to 
be allowed to hold them ! 

Then the cab-drive through early morning streets, where 
lazy Londoners were only just pulling up their blinds, 
servant-maids were scrubbing doorsteps and the milkman 
clinking his cans. 

A little later we sat down to a second breakfast — coffee, 
toast, bacon and marmalade, with half a dozen English 
papers strewn round us, and a smiling white-capped maid in 
attendance. Louisa can't make out where we have been, but 
tells her friends we have come back " from China — and isn't 
it a mercy them ' Boxers ' didn't have them ! "" 

Louisa says, moreover, when I tell her anecdotes of our 
travels, " Lor, mem, how could you go to them nasty places ? 
Suppose you or master had took ill — where would you have 
been then ? " She adds that travelling is " all very well for 
such as haven't decent homes," but that for her part she 
once went down to Margate for the day and that was enough 
for her ! 

Do we agree with her.^^ For a few days I think we do, 
but — alas ! for the mutability of the human mind ! — in a 
few days more I think Ave don't, and I notice that Andrew 
is reading the shipping news every morning. 

Q. 



242 TWO ON THEIR TRAVELS 

Our relations are genuinely pleased to see us back, and the 
hilarious ones say : " Dear me, what globe-trotters you are ! " 
without any suspicion of the pain they inflict. Our one 
wealthy aunt asks suspiciously what churches we have been 
attending during our absence. In the bosom of our families 
our travellers' tales are listened to with a certain amount of 
respect for a day or two, though somewhat checked by 
inquiries as to where such and such a place is — " In China ? '" 
(Just about this time every place in the Far East from 
Singapore to Vladivostock was supposed by our relations to 
be in China.) Then public interest wanes. Our thrilling 
descriptions are cut short by a murmured aside, " Jane, dear, 
did you know that young Mrs. Smith had her sister staying 
with her, and they say that there's something between her 
and Bertie Brown ? "" 

When we meet old friends in the street we are prompted 
to rush up and shake them by the hands. It seems so won- 
derful that they should still be here. At first they are 
slightly surprised, then a light dawns on them. " You've 
been away, haven't you ? I thought I hadn't seen you lately 
— Japan .^ Java? Philippines .?— Dear me! Quite a. tour [ 
Yes, we're all well, thank you, but Maria still has the boys 
with her in Scotland, Charlie had the mumps," &c. &c. 
Then as a postscript — " What sort of weather have you had?" 

And now I must not linger in my farewells, but must make 
my bow and exit with all the grace I can. Andrew is 
waiting to lead me from the stage, and together we wave 
our hands to our friends, known and unknown, and wish 
them voyages as fortunate as ours and hearts as light to 
enjoy. 

" A merry heart goes all the way, 
A sad one tires in a mile-a." 



Printed by 

Ballantyne, Hanson &' Co. 

London <5r= Edinburgh 



DEC m 19^2 



